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Title: The Germ
Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art
Author: Various
Commentator: William Michael Rossetti
Editor: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Release Date: January 31, 2006 [EBook #17649]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
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Produced by Andrew Sly

THE GERM

Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature
and Art

BEING
A FACSIMILE REPRINT OF THE LITERARY
ORGAN OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITE
BROTHERHOOD, PUBLISHED
IN 1850

WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI

LONDON
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1901

INTRODUCTION.

Of late years it has been my fate or my whim to write a good deal about
the early days of the Præraphaelite movement, the members of the
Præraphaelite Brotherhood, and especially my brother Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, and my sister Christina Georgina Rossetti. I am now invited to
write something further on the subject, with immediate reference to the
Præraphaelite magazine “The Germ,” republished in this
volume. I know of no particular reason why I should not do this, for certain
it is that few people living know, or ever knew, so much as I do about
“The Germ,”; and if some press-critics who regarded previous
writings of mine as superfluous or ill-judged should entertain a like
opinion now, in equal or increased measure, I willingly leave them to say
so, while I pursue my own course none the less.

“The Germ” is here my direct theme, not the
Præraphaelite Brotherhood; but it seems requisite to say in the first
instance something about the Brotherhood—its members, allies, and
ideas—so as to exhibit a raison d'être for the magazine. In
doing this I must necessarily repeat some things which I have set forth
before, and which, from the writings of others as well as myself, are well
enough known to many. I can vary my form of expression, but cannot introduce
much novelty into my statements of fact.

In 1848 the British School of Painting was in anything but a vital or a
lively condition. One very great and incomparable genius, Turner, belonged
to it. He was old and past his executive prime. There were some other highly
able men—Etty and David Scott, then both very near their death;
Maclise, Dyce, Cope, Mulready, Linnell, Poole, William Henry Hunt, Landseer,
Leslie, Watts, Cox, J.F. Lewis, and some others. There were also some
distinctly clever men, such as Ward, Frith, and Egg. Paton, Gilbert, Ford
Madox Brown, Mark Anthony, had given sufficient indication of their powers,
but were all in an early stage. On the whole the school had sunk very far
below what it had been in the days of Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and
Blake, and its 6 ordinary average had come to
be something for which commonplace is a laudatory term, and imbecility a not
excessive one.

There were in the late summer of 1848, in the Schools of the Royal
Academy or barely emergent from them, four young men to whom this condition
of the art seemed offensive, contemptible, and even scandalous. Their names
were William Holman-Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
painters, and Thomas Woolner, sculptor. Their ages varied from twenty-two to
nineteen—Woolner being the eldest, and Millais the youngest. Being
little more than lads, these young men were naturally not very deep in
either the theory or the practice of art: but they had open eyes and minds,
and could discern that some things were good and other bad—that some
things they liked, and others they hated. They hated the lack of ideas in
art, and the lack of character; the silliness and vacuity which belong to
the one, the flimsiness and make-believe which result from the other. They
hated those forms of execution which are merely smooth and prettyish, and
those which, pretending to mastery, are nothing better than slovenly and
slapdash, or what the P.R.B.'s called “sloshy.” Still more did
they hate the notion that each artist should not obey his own individual
impulse, act upon his own perception and study of Nature, and scrutinize and
work at his objective material with assiduity before he could attempt to
display and interpret it; but that, instead of all this, he should try to be
“like somebody else,” imitating some extant style and manner,
and applying the cut-and-dry rules enunciated by A from the practice of B or
C. They determined to do the exact contrary. The temper of these striplings,
after some years of the current academic training, was the temper of rebels:
they meant revolt, and produced revolution. It would be a mistake to
suppose, because the called themselves Præraphaelites, that they
seriously disliked the works produced by Raphael; but they disliked the
works produced by Raphael's uninspired satellites, and were resolved to find
out, by personal study and practice, what their own several faculties and
adaptabilities might be, without being bound by rules and big-wiggeries
founded upon the performance of Raphael or of any one. They were to have no
master except their own powers of mind and hand, and their own first-hand
study of Nature. Their minds were to furnish them with subjects for works of
art, and with the general scheme of treatment; Nature was to be their one or
their paramount storehouse of materials for objects to be represented; the
study of her was to be deep, and the representation (at any rate in the
earlier stages of self-discipline and work) in the highest degree exact;
executive methods were to be learned partly from precept and example, but
most essentially from practice and experiment. As their minds were very
different in range 7 and direction, their
products also, from the first, differed greatly; and these soon ceased to
have any link of resemblance.

The Præraphaelite Brothers entertained a deep respect and a sincere
affection for the works of some of the artists who had preceded Raphael; and
they thought that they should more or less be following the lead of those
artists if they themselves were to develop their own individuality,
disregarding school-rules. This was really the sum and substance of their
“Præraphaelitism.” It may freely be allowed that, as they
were very young, and fired by certain ideas impressive to their own spirits,
they unduly ignored some other ideas and theories which have none the less a
deal to say for themselves. They contemned some things and some
practitioners of art not at all contemptible, and, in speech still more than
in thought, they at times wilfully heaped up the scorn. You cannot have a
youthful rebel with a faculty who is also a model head-boy in a school.

The P.R.B. was completed by the accession of three members to the four
already mentioned. These were James Collinson, a domestic painter; Frederic
George Stephens, an Academy-student of painting; and myself, a
Government-clerk. These again, when the P.R.B. was formed towards September
1848, were all young, aged respectively about twenty-three, twenty-one, and
nineteen.

This Præraphaelite Brotherhood was the independent creation of
Holman-Hunt, Millais, Rossetti, and (in perhaps a somewhat minor degree)
Woolner: it cannot be said that they were prompted or abetted by any one.
Ruskin, whose name has been sometimes inaccurately mixed up in the matter,
and who had as yet published only the first two volumes of “Modern
Painters,” was wholly unknown to them personally, and in his writings
was probably known only to Holman-Hunt. Ford Madox Brown had been an
intimate of Rossetti since March 1848, and he sympathized, fully as much as
any of these younger men, with some old-world developments of art preceding
its ripeness or over-ripeness: but he had no inclination to join any
organization for protest and reform, and he followed his own
course—more influenced, for four or five years ensuing, by what the
P.R.B.'s were doing than influencing them. Among the persons who were most
intimate with the members of the Brotherhood towards the date of its
formation, and onwards till the inception of “The Germ,” I may
mention the following. For Holman-Hunt, the sculptor John Lucas Tupper, who
had been a fellow Academy-student, and was now an anatomical designer at
Guy's Hospital: he and his family were equally well acquainted with Mr.
Stephens. For Millais, the painter Charles Allston Collins, son of the
well-known painter of domestic life and coast-scenes William Collins; 8 the painter Arthur Hughes; also his own brother,
William Henry Millais, who had musical aptitudes and became a
landscape-painter. For Rossetti, William Bell Scott (brother of David
Scott), painter, poet, and Master of the Government School of Design in
Newcastle-on-Tyne; Major Calder Campbell, a retired Officer of the Indian
army, and a somewhat popular writer of tales, verses, etc.; Alexander Munro
the sculptor; Walter Howell Deverell, a young painter, son of the Secretary
to the Government Schools of Design; James Hannay, the novelist, satirical
writer, and journalist; and (known through Madox Brown) William Cave Thomas,
a painter who had studied in the severe classical school of Germany, and had
earned a name in the Westminster Hall competitions for frescoes in
Parliament. For Woolner, John Hancock and Bernhard Smith, sculptors;
Coventry Patmore the poet, with his connections the Orme family and
Professor Masson; also William North, an eccentric young literary man, of
much effervescence and some talent, author of “Anti-Coningsby”
and other novels. For Collinson, the prominent painter of romantic and
biblical subjects John Rogers Herbert, who was, like Collinson himself, a
Roman Catholic convert.

The Præraphaelite Brotherhood having been founded in September
1848, the members exhibited in 1849 works conceived in the new spirit. These
were received by critics and by the public with more than moderate though
certainly not unmixed favour: it had not as yet transpired that there was a
league of unquiet and ambitious young spirits, bent upon making a fresh
start of their own, and a clean sweep of some effete respectabilities. It
was not until after the exhibitions were near closing in 1849 that any idea
of bringing out a magazine came to be discussed. The author of the project
was Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He alone among the P.R.B.'s had already
cultivated the art of writing in verse and in prose to some noticeable
extent (“The Blessed Damozel” had been produced before May
1847), and he was better acquainted than any other member with British and
foreign literature. There need be no self-conceit in saying that in these
respects I came next to him. Holman-Hunt, Woolner, and Stephens, were all
reading men (in British literature only) within straiter bounds than
Rossetti: not any one of them, I think, had as yet done in writing anything
worth mentioning. Millais and Collinson, more especially the former, were
men of the brush, not the pen, yet both of them capable of writing with
point, and even in verse. By July 13 and 14, 1849, some steps were taken
towards discussing the project of a magazine. The price, as at first
proposed, was to be sixpence; the title, “Monthly Thoughts in
Literature, Poetry, and Art”; each number was to have an etching. Soon
afterwards 9 a price of one shilling was
decided upon, and two etchings per number: but this latter intention was not
carried out.{1} All the P.R.B.'s were to be proprietors of the magazine: I
question however whether Collinson was ever persuaded to assume this
responsibility, entailing payment of an eventual deficit. We were quite
ready also to have some other proprietors. Mr. Herbert was addressed by
Collinson, and at one time was regarded as pretty safe. Mr. Hancock the
sculptor did not resist the pressure put upon him; but after all he
contributed nothing to “The Germ,” either in work or in money.
Walter Deverell assented, and paid when the time came. Thus there seem to
have been eight, or else seven, proprietors—not one of them having any
spare cash, and not all of them much steadiness of interest in the scheme
set going by Dante Rossetti.

{1} Many of the particulars here given regarding “The Germ”
appear in the so-called “P.R.B. Journal,” which was published
towards December 1899, in the volume named “Preraphaelite Diaries and
Letters, edited by W.M. Rossetti.” At the date when I wrote the
present introduction, that volume had not been offered for publication.

With so many persons having a kind of co-equal right to decide what
should be done with the magazine, it soon became apparent that somebody
ought to be appointed Editor, and assume the control. I, during an absence
from London, was fixed upon for this purpose by Woolner and my
brother—with the express or tacit assent, so far as I know, of all the
others, I received notice of my new dignity on September 23, 1849, being
just under twenty years of age, and I forthwith applied myself to the task.
It had at first been proposed to print upon the prospectus and wrappers of
the magazine the words “Conducted by Artists,” and also (just
about this time) to entitle it “The P.R.B. Journal.” I called
attention to the first of these points as running counter to my assuming the
editorship, and to the second as in itself inappropriate: both had in fact
been already set aside. My brother had ere this been introduced to Messrs.
Aylott and Jones, publishers in Paternoster Row (principally concerned, I
believe, with books of evangelical religion), and had entered into terms
with them, and got them to print a prospectus. “P.R.B.” was at
first printed on the latter, but to this Mr. Holman-Hunt objected in
November, and it was omitted. The printers were to be Messrs. Tupper and
Sons, a firm of lithographic and general printers in the City, the same
family to which John Lucas Tupper belonged. The then title, invented by my
brother, was “Thoughts towards Nature,” a phrase which, though
somewhat extra-peculiar, indicated accurately enough the predominant
conception of the Præraphaelite Brotherhood, that an artist, whether
painter or writer, ought to be bent upon defining and expressing his own
personal thoughts, and 10 that these ought to
be based upon a direct study of Nature, and harmonized with her
manifestations. It was not until December 19, when the issue of our No. 1
was closely impending, that a different title, “The Germ,” was
proposed. On that evening there was a rather large gathering at Dante
Rossetti's studio, 72 Newman Street; the seven P.R.B.'s, Madox Brown, Cave
Thomas, Deverell, Hancock, and John and George Tupper. Mr. Thomas had drawn
up a list of no less than sixty-five possible titles (a facsimile of his MS.
of some of them appears in the “Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to
William Allingham,” edited by George Birkbeck Hill—Unwin, 1897).
Only a few of them met with favour; and one of them, “The Germ,”
going to the vote along with “The Seed” and “The
Scroll,” was approved by a vote of six to four. The next best were, I
think, “The Harbinger,” “First Thoughts,” “The
Sower,” “The Truth-Seeker,” and “The Acorn.”
Appended to the new title we retained, as a sub-title, something of what had
been previously proposed; and the serial appeared as “The Germ.
Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature, and Art.” At this same
meeting Mr. Woolner suggested that authors' names should not be published in
the magazine. I alone opposed him, and his motion was carried. I cannot at
this distance of time remember with any precision what his reasons were; but
I think that he, and all the other artists concerned, entertained a general
feeling that to appear publicly as writers, and especially as writers
opposing the ordinary current of opinions on fine art, would damage their
professional position, which already involved uphill work more than
enough.

“The Germ,” No. 1, came out on or about January 1, 1850. The
number of copies printed was 700. Something like 200 were sold, in about
equal proportions by the publishers, and by ourselves among acquaintances and
well-wishers. This was not encouraging, so we reduced the issue of No. 2 to
500 copies. It sold less well than No. 1. With this number was introduced
the change of printing on the wrapper the names of most of the contributors:
not of all, for some still preferred to remain unnamed, or to figure under a
fancy designation. Had we been left to our own resources, we must now have
dropped the magazine. But the printing-firm—or Mr. George I.F. Tupper
as representing it—came forward, and undertook to try the chance of
two numbers more. The title was altered (at Mr. Alexander Tupper's
suggestion) to “Art and Poetry, being Thoughts towards Nature,
conducted principally by Artists”; and Messrs. Dickinson and Co., of
New Bond Street, the printsellers, consented to join their name as
publishers to that of Messrs. Aylott and Jones. Mr. Robert Dickinson, the
head of this firm, and more especially his brother, the able
portrait-painter 11 Mr. Lowes Dickinson, were
well known to Madox Brown, and through him to members of the P.R.B. I
continued to be editor; but, as the money stake of myself and my colleagues
in the publication had now ceased, I naturally accommodated myself more than
before to any wish evinced by the Tupper family. No. 3, which ought to have
appeared March 1, was delayed by these uncertainties and changes till March
31. No. 4 came out on April 30. Some small amount of advertising was done,
more particularly by posters carried about in front of the Royal Academy
(then in Trafalgar Square), which opened at the beginning of May. All
efforts proved useless. People would not buy “The Germ,” and
would scarcely consent to know of its existence. So the magazine breathed
its last, and its obsequies were conducted in the strictest privacy. Its
debts exceeded its assets, and a sum of £33 odd, due on Nos. 1 and 2,
had to be cleared off by the seven (or eight) proprietors, conscientious
against the grain. What may have been the loss of Messrs. Tupper on Nos. 3
and 4 I am unable to say. It is hardly worth specifying that neither the
editor, nor any of the contributors whether literary or artistic, received
any sort of payment. This was foreseen from the first as being “in the
bond,” and was no grievance to anybody.

“The Germ,” as we have seen, was a most decided failure, yet
it would be a mistake to suppose that it excited no amount of literary
attention whatsoever. There were laudatory notices in “The
Dispatch,” “The Guardian,” “Howitt's Standard of
Freedom,” “John Bull,” “The Critic,”
“Bell's Weekly Messenger,” “The Morning Chronicle,”
and I dare say some other papers. A pat on the back, with a very lukewarm
hand, was bestowed by “The Art Journal.” There were notices
also—not eulogistic—in “The Spectator” and
elsewhere. The editor of “The Critic,” Mr. (afterwards Serjeant)
Cox, on the faith of doings in “The Germ,” invited me, or some
other of the art-writers there, to undertake the fine-art
department—picture-exhibitions, etc.—of his weekly review. This
I did for a short time, and, on getting transferred to “The
Spectator,” I was succeeded on “The Critic” by Mr. F.G.
Stephens. I also received some letters consequent upon “The
Germ,” and made some acquaintances among authors; Horne, Clough,
Heraud, Westland Marston, also Miss Glyn the actress. I as editor came in
for this; but of course the attractiveness of “The Germ”
depended upon the writings of others, chiefly Messrs. Woolner, Patmore, and
Orchard, my sister, and above all my brother, and, among the artist-etchers,
Mr. Holman-Hunt.

I happen to be still in possession of the notices which appeared in
“The Critic,” “Bell's Weekly Messenger,” and
“The Guardian,” and of extracts (as given in our present
facsimile) from those in “John Bull,” 12 “The Morning Chronicle,” and “The
Standard of Freedom”: I here reproduce the first three for the curious
reader's perusal. First comes the review which appeared in “The
Critic” on February 15, 1850, followed by a second review on June 1.
The former was (as shown by the initials) written by Mr. Cox, and I presume
the latter also. Major Calder Campbell must have called the particular
attention of Mr. Cox to “The Germ.” My own first personal
acquaintance with this gentleman may have been intermediate between 15
February and 1 June.

We depart from our usual plan of noticing the periodicals under one
heading, for the purpose of introducing to our readers a new aspirant for
public favour, which has peculiar and uncommon claims to attention, for in
design and execution it differs from all other periodicals. The Germ
is the somewhat affected and unpromising title give to a small monthly
journal, which is devoted almost entirely to poetry and art, and is the
production of a party of young persons. This statement is of itself, as we
are well aware, enough to cause it to be looked upon with shyness. A
periodical largely occupied with poetry wears an unpromising aspect to
readers who have learned from experience what nonsensical stuff most
fugitive magazine-poetry is; nor is this natural prejudice diminished by the
knowledge that it is the production of young gentlemen and ladies. But, when
they have read a few extracts which we propose to make, we think they will
own that for once appearances are deceitful, and that an affected title and
an unpromising theme really hides a great deal of genius; mingled however,
we must also admit, with many conceits which youth is prone to, but which
time and experience will assuredly tame.

That the contents of The Germ are the production of no common
minds the following extracts will sufficiently prove, and we may add that
these are but a small portion of the contents which might prefer equal
claims to applause.

“My Beautiful Lady,” and “Of my Lady in Death,”
are two poems in a quaint metre, full of true poetry, marred by not a few
affectations—the genuine metal, but wanting to be purified from its
dross. Nevertheless, it is pleasant to find the precious ore anywhere in
these unpoetical times.

To our taste the following is replete with poetry. What a picture
it is! A poet's tongue has told what an artist's eye has seen. It is the
first of a series to be entitled “Songs of One Household.” [Here
comes Dante Rossetti's poem, “My Sister's Sleep,” followed by
Patmore's “Seasons,” and Christina Rossetti's
“Testimony.”] We have not space to take any specimens of the
prose, but the essays on art are conceived with an equal appreciation of its
meaning and requirements. Being such, The Germ has our
heartiest wishes for its success; but we scarcely dare to hope that
it may win the popularity it deserves. The truth is that it is too good for
the time. It is not material enough for the age.

Some time since we had occasion to direct the attention of our readers to
a periodical then just issued under the modest title of The Germ. The
surprise and pleasure with which we read it was, as we are informed, very
generally shared by our readers upon perusing the poems we extracted from
it; and it was manifest to every person of the slightest taste that the
contributors were possessed of genius of a very high order, and that The
Germ was not wantonly so entitled, for it abounded with the promise of a
rich harvest to be anticipated from the maturity of those whose youth could
accomplish so much.

13

But we expressed also our fear lest the very excellence of this magazine
should be fatal to its success. It was too good—that is to say, too
refined and of too lofty a class, both in its art and in its poetry—to
be sufficiently popular to pay even the printer's bill. The name, too, was
against it, being somewhat unintelligible to the thoughtless, and conveying
to the considerate a notion of something very juvenile. Those fears were not
unfounded, for it was suspended for a short time; but other journals after a
while discovered and proclaimed the merit that was scattered profusely over
the pages of The Germ, and, thus encouraged, the enterprise has been
resumed, with a change of name which we must regard as an improvement.
Art and Poetry precisely describes its character. It is wholly
devoted to them, and it aims at originality in both. It is seeking out for
itself new paths, in a spirit of earnestness, and with an undoubted ability
which must lead to a new era. The writers may err somewhat at first, show
themselves too defiant of prescriptive rules, and mistake extravagance for
originality; but this fault (inherent in youth when, conscious of its
powers, it first sets up for itself) will after a while work its own cure,
and with experience will come soberer action. But we cannot contemplate this
young and rising school in art and literature without the most ardent
anticipations of something great to grow from it, something new and worthy
of our age, and we bid them God speed upon the path they have
adventured.

But our more immediate purpose here is with the poetry, of which about
one-half of each number is composed. It is all beautiful, must of it of
extraordinary merit, and equal to anything that any of our known poets could
write, save Tennyson, of whom the strains sometimes remind us, although they
are not imitations in any sense of the word. [The Reviewer next proceeds to
quote, with a few words of comment, Christina Rossetti's “Sweet
Death,” John Tupper's “Viola and Olivia,” Orchard's
“Whit-Sunday Morn,” and (later on) Dante Rossetti's “Pax
Vobis.”]

Almost one half of the April number is occupied with a “Dialogue on
Art,” the composition of an Artist whose works are well known to the
public. It was written during a period of ill health, which forbad the use
of the brush, and, taking his pen, he has given to the world his thoughts
upon art in a paper which the Edinburgh Review in its best days might
have been proud to possess.

Sure we are that not one of our readers will regret the length at which
we have noticed this work.

The short and unpretending critique which I add from “Bell's Weekly
Messenger” was written, I believe, either by or at the instance of Mr.
Bellamy, a gentleman who acted as secretary to the National Club. His son
addressed me as editor of “The Germ,” in terms of great ardour,
and through the son I on one occasion saw the father as well.

Art and Poetry. Nos. I., II., and III. London, Dickinson and
Co.

The present numbers are the commencement of a very useful publication,
conducted principally by artists, the design of which is to “express
thoughts towards Nature.” We see much to commend in its pages, which
are also nicely illustrated in the mediæval style of art and in
outline. The paper upon Shakespeare's tragedy of “Macbeth,” in
the third number, abounds with striking passages, and will be found to be
well worthy of consideration.

I now proceed to “The Guardian.” The notice came out on
August 20, 1850, some months after “The Germ” had expired. I do
not now know who wrote it, and (so far as memory serves me) I never did
know. The writer truly said that Millais “contributes nothing”
to the magazine. This however was not Millais's fault, for he made an 14 etching for a prose story by my brother (named
“An Autopsychology,” or now “St. Agnes of
Intercession”); and this etching, along with the story, had been
expected to appear in a No. 5 of “The Germ” which never came
out. The “very curious but very striking picture” by Rossetti
was the “Annunciation,” now in the National British Gallery.

Art and Poetry. Being Thoughts towards Nature. Conducted
principally by Artists. Dickinson and Co., and Aylott and Jones.

We are very sorry to find that, after a short life of four monthly
numbers, this magazine is not likely to be continued. Independently of the
great ability displayed by some of its contributors, we have been anxious to
see the rising school of young and clever artists find a voice, and tell us
what they are aiming at, and how they propose to reach their aim. This
magazine was to a great extent connected with the Pre-Raffaelle Brethren,
whose paintings have attracted this year a more than ordinary quantity of
attention, and an amount of praise and blame perhaps equally extravagant. As
might have been expected, the school has been identified with its cleverest
manipulator, Mr. Millais, and his merits or defects have been made the
measure of the admiration or contempt bestowed by the public upon those whom
it chooses to class with him. This is not matter of complaint, but it is a
mistake. As far as these papers enable us to judge, Mr. Millais is by no
means the leading mind among his fraternity; and judged by the
principles of some clever and beautiful papers upon art in the magazine
before us, his pictures would be described by them as wanting in some of the
very highest artistic qualities, although possessing many which entitle them
to attention and respect. The chief contributors to this magazine (to which
Mr. Millais contributes nothing) are other artists, as yet not greatly
known, but with feeling and purpose about them such as must make them
remarkable in time. Some of the best papers are by two brothers named
Rossetti, one of whom, Mr. D. G. Rossetti, has a very curious but very
striking picture now exhibiting in the Portland Gallery. Mr. Deverell, who
has also a very clever picture in the same gallery, contributes some
beautiful poetry. It is perhaps chiefly in the poetry that the abilities of
these writers are displayed; for, with somewhat absurd and much that is
affected, there is yet in the poetical pieces of these four numbers a beauty
and grace of language and sentiment, and not seldom a vigour of conception,
altogether above the common run. Want of purpose may be easily charged
against them as a fault, and with some justice, but it is a very common
defect of youthful poetry, which is sure to disappear with time if there be
anything real and manly in the poet. The best pieces are too long to
extracted in entire, and are not to be judged of fairly except as wholes.
There is a very fine poem called “Repining” of which this is
particularly true. [Next comes a quotation of Christina Rossetti's
“Dream Land,” and of a portion of Dante Rossetti's
“Blessed Damozel.”] The last number contains a remarkable
dialogue on Art, written by a young man, John Orchard, who has since died.
It is well worth study. Kalon, Kosmon, Sophon, and Christian, whose names,
of course, represent the opinions they defend, discuss a number of subjects
connected with the arts. Each character is well supported, and the wisdom
and candour of the whole piece is very striking, especially when we consider
the youth and inexperience of the writer. Art lost a true and high-minded
votary in Mr. Orchard. [A rather long extract from the “Dialogue”
follows here.]

It is a pity that the publication is to stop. English artists have
hitherto worked each one by himself, with too little of common purpose, too
little of mutual support, too little of distinct and steadily pursued
intellectual object. We do not believe that they are one whit more jealous
than the followers of other professions. But they are less forced to be
together, and the little jealousies which deform the natures of us all have
in their case, for this reason, freer scope, and tend more to isolation.
Here, at last, we have a school, ignorant it may be, conceited
possibly, as yet with but vague and unrealised objects, but working together
with a common purpose, according to 15 certain
admitted principles, and looking to one another for help and sympathy. This
is new in England, and we are very anxious it should have a fair trial. Its
aim, moreover, however imperfectly attained as yet, is high and pure. No one
can walk along our streets and not see how debased and sensual our tastes
have become. The saying of Burke (so unworthy of a great man), that vice
loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is practically acted upon,
and voluptuous and seductive figures, recommended only by a soft effeminacy,
swarm our shop-windows and defile our drawing-rooms. It is impossible to
over-state the extent to which they minister to, and increase the foul sins
of, a corrupt and luxurious age. A school of artists who attempt to bring
back the popular taste to the severe draperies and pure forms of early art
are at least deserving of encouragement. Success in their attempt would be a
national blessing.

Shrivelling in the Spring of 1850, “The Germ” showed no
further sign of sprouting for many years, though I suppose it may have been
known to the promoters of “The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,”
produced in 1856, and may have furnished some incitement towards that
enterprise—again an unsuccessful one commercially. Gradually some
people began to take a little interest in the knowledge that such a
publication had existed, and to inquire after stray copies here and there.
This may perhaps have commenced before 1870, or at any rate shortly
afterwards, as in that year the “Poems” of Dante Rossetti were
brought out, exciting a great amount of attention and admiration, and
curiosity attached to anything that he might have published before. One
heard of such prices as ten shillings for a set of the “The
Germ,” then £2, £10, £30, etc., and in 1899 a copy
handsomely bound by Cobden-Saunderson was sold in America for about
£104. Will that high-water mark ever be exceeded? For the sake of
common-sense, let us hope not.

I will now go through the articles in “The Germ” one by one.
Wherever any of them may seem to invite a few words of explanation I offer
such to the reader; and I give the names of the authors, when not named in
the magazine itself. Those articles which do not call for any particular
comment receive none here.

On the wrapper of each number is to be found a sonnet, printed in a
rather aggressively Gothic type, beginning, “When whoso merely hath a
little thought.” This sonnet is my performance; it had been suggested
that one or other of the proprietors of the magazine should write a sonnet
to express the spirit in which the publication was undertaken. I wrote the
one here in question, which met with general acceptance; and I do not
remember that any one else competed. This sonnet may not be a good one, but
I do not see why it should be considered unintelligible. Mr. Bell Scott, in
his “Autobiographical Notes,” expressed the opinion that to
master the production would almost need a Browning Society's united
intellects. And he then gave 16 his
interpretation, differing not essentially from my own. What I meant is this:
A writer ought to think out his subject honestly and personally, not
imitatively, and ought to express it with directness and precision; if he
does this, we should respect his performance as truthful, even though it may
not be important. This indicated, for writers, much the same principle which
the P.R.B. professed for painters,—individual genuineness in the
thought, reproductive genuineness in the presentment.

By Thomas Woolner: “My Beautiful Lady,” and “Of My Lady
in Death.” These compositions were, I think, nearly the first attempts
which Mr. Woolner made in verse; any earlier endeavours must have been few
and slight. The author's long poem “My Beautiful Lady,”
published in 1863, started from these beginnings. Coventry Patmore, on
hearing the poems in September 1849, was considerably impressed by them:
“the only defect he found” (as notified in a letter from Dante
Rossetti) “being that they were a trifle too much in earnest in the
passionate parts, and too sculpturesque generally. He means by this that
each stanza stands too much alone, and has its own ideas too much to
itself.”

By Ford Madox Brown: “The Love of Beauty: Sonnet.”

By John L. Tupper: “The Subject in Art.” Two papers, which do
not complete the important thesis here undertaken. Mr. Tupper was, for an
artist, a man of unusually scientific mind; yet he was not, I think,
distinguished by that power of orderly and progressive exposition which
befits an argumentation. These papers exhibit a good deal of thought, and
state several truths which, even if partial truths, are not the less
deserving of attention; but the dissertation does not produce a very clear
impression, inasmuch as there is too great a readiness to plunge, in
medias res, checked by too great a tendency to harking back, and
re-stating some conclusion in modified terms and with insecure corollaries.
Two points which Mr. Tupper chiefly insists upon are: (1) that the subject
in a work of art affects the beholder in the same sort of way as the same
subject, occurring as a fact or aspect of Nature, affects him; and thus
whatever in Nature excites the mental and moral emotion of man is a right
subject for fine art; and (2), that subjects of our own day should not be
discarded in favour of those of a past time. These principles, along with
others bearing in the same direction, underlie the propositions lately
advanced by Count Leo Tolstoy in his most interesting and valuable (though I
think one-sided) book entitled “What is Art?”—and the like
may be said of the principles announced in the “Hand and Soul”
of Dante Rossetti, and in the “Dialogue on Art” by John Orchard,
through the mouths of two of the speakers, Christian 17 and Sophon. I have once or twice seen these papers by
Mr. Tupper commented upon to the effect that he wholly ignores the question
of art-merit in a work of art, the question whether it is good or bad in
form, colour, etc. But this is a mistake, for in fact he allows that this is
a relevant consideration, but declines to bring it within his own lines of
discussion. There is also a curious passage which has been remarked upon as
next door to absurd; that where, in treating of various forms of still life
as inferior subjects for art, he says that “the dead pheasant in a
picture will always be as ‘food,’ while the same at the
poulterer's will be but a dead pheasant.” I do not perceive that this
is really absurd. At the poulterer's (and Mr. Tupper has proceeded to say as
much in his article) all the items are in fact food, and therefore the
spectator attends to the differences between them; one being a pheasant,
one a fowl, one a rabbit, etc. But, in a varied collection of pictures, most
of the works representing some subject quite unconnected with food; and, if
you see among them one, such as a dead pheasant, representing an article of
food, that is the point which primarily occurs to your mind as
distinguishing this particular picture from the others. The views expressed
by Mr. Tupper in these two papers should be regarded as his own, and not by
any means necessarily those upheld by the Præraphaelite Brotherhood.
The members of this body must however have agreed with several of his
utterances, and sympathized with others, apart from strict agreement.

By Patmore: “The Seasons.” This choice little poem was
volunteered to “The Germ” in September, after the author had
read our prospectus, which impressed him favourably. He withheld his name,
much to our disappointment, having resolved to do so in all instances where
something of his might be published pending the issue of a new volume.

By Christina Rossetti: “Dream Land.” Though my sister was
only just nineteen when this remarkable lyric was printed, she had already
made some slight appearance in published type (not to speak of the privately
printed “Verses” of 1847), as two small poems of hers had been
inserted in “The Athenæum” in October 1848. “Dream
Land” was written in April 1849, before “The Germ” was
thought of; and it may be as well to say that all my sister's contributions
to this magazine were produced without any reference to publication in that
or in any particular form.

By Dante G. Rossetti: “My Sister's Sleep.” This purports to
be No. 1 of “Songs of One Household.” I do not much think that
Dante Rossetti ever wrote any other poem which would have been proper to
such a series. “My Sister's Sleep” was composed very soon after
he 18 emerged from a merely juvenile stage of
work. I believe that it dates before “The Blessed Damozel,” and
therefore before May 1847. It is not founded upon any actual event affecting
the Rossetti family, nor any family of our acquaintance. As I have said in
my Memoir of my brother (1895), the poem was shown, perhaps early in 1848,
by Major Calder Campbell to the editress of the “Belle
Assemblée,” who heartily admired it, but, for one reason or
another, did not publish it. This composition is somewhat noticeable on more
grounds than one; not least as being in a metre which was not much in use
until it became famous in Tennyson's “In Memoriam,” published in
1850, and of course totally unknown to Rossetti when he wrote “My
Sister's Sleep.” In later years my brother viewed this early work with
some distaste, and he only reluctantly reprinted it in his
“Poems,” 1870. He then wholly omitted the four stanzas 7, 8, 12,
13, beginning: “Silence was speaking,” “I said, full
knowledge,” “She stood a moment,” “Almost
unwittingly”; and he made some other verbal alterations.{2} It will be
observed that this poem was written long before the Præraphaelite
movement began. None the less it shows in an eminent degree one of the
influences which guided that movement: the intimate intertexture of a
spiritual sense with a material form; small actualities made vocal of lofty
meanings.

{2} I may call attention to Stanza 16, “She stooped an
instant.” The word is “stooped” in “The Germ,”
and in the “Poems” of 1870. This is undoubtedly correct; but in
my brother's re-issue of the “Poems,” 1881, the word got
mis-printed “stopped”; and I find the same mis-print in
subsequent editions.

By Dante G. Rossetti: “Hand and Soul.” This tale was, I
think, written with an express view to its appearing in No. 1 of our
magazine, and Rossetti began making for it an etching, which, though not
ready for No. 1, was intended to appear in some number later than the
second. He drew it in March 1850; but, being disgusted with the performance,
he scratched the plate over, and tore up the prints. The design showed
Chiaro dell' Erma in the act of painting his embodied Soul. Though the form
of this tale is that of romantic metaphor, its substance is a very serious
manifesto of art-dogma. It amounts to saying, The only satisfactory works of
art are those which exhibit the very soul of the artist. To work for fame or
self-display is a failure, and to work for direct moral proselytizing is a
failure; but to paint that which your own perceptions and emotions urge you
to paint promises to be a success for yourself, and hence a benefit to the
mass of beholders. This was the core of the
“Præraphaelite” creed; with the adjunct (which hardly came
within the scope of Rossetti's tale, and yet may be partly traced there)
that the artist cannot attain to adequate self-expression 19 save through a stern study and realization of natural
appearances. And it may be said that to this core of the Præraphaelite
creed Rossetti always adhered throughout his life, greatly different though
his later works are from his earlier ones in the externals of artistic
style. Most of “Hand and Soul” was written on December 21, 1849,
day and night, chiefly in some five hours beginning after midnight. Three
currents of thought may be traced in this story: (1) A certain amount of
knowledge regarding the beginnings of Italian art, mingled with some
ignorance, voluntary or involuntary, of what was possible to be done in the
middle of the thirteenth century; (2) a highly ideal, yet individual,
general treatment of the narrative; and (3) a curious aptitude at detailing
figments as if they were facts. All about Chiaro dell' Erma himself, Dresden
and Dr. Aemmster, D'Agincourt, pictures at the Pitti Gallery, the author's
visit to Florence in 1847, etc., are pure inventions or
“mystifications”; but so realistically put that they have in
various instances been relied upon and cited as truths. I gave some details
as to this in my Memoir of Dante Rossetti. The style of writing in
“Hand and Soul” is of a very exceptional kind. My brother had at
that time a great affection for “Stories after Nature,” written
by Charles Wells (author of “Joseph and his Brethren”), and
these he kept in view to some extent as a model, though the direct
resemblance is faint indeed. In the conversation of foreign art-students,
forming the epilogue, he may have been not wholly oblivious of the scene in
Browning's “Pippa Passes” (a prime favourite of his), where some
“foreign students of painting and sculpture” are preparing a
disagreeable surprise for the French sculptor Jules. There is, however, no
sort of imitation; and Rossetti's dialogue is the more markedly natural of
the two. In re-reading “Hand and Soul,” I am struck by two
passages which came true of Rossetti himself in after-life: (1)
“Sometimes after nightfall he would walk abroad in the most solitary
places he could find—hardly feeling the ground under him because of
the thoughts of the day which held him in fever.” (2) “Often he
would remain at work through the whole of a day, not resting once so long as
the light lasted.” When Rossetti, in 1869, was collecting his poems,
and getting them privately printed with a view to after-publication, he
thought of including “Hand and Soul” in the same volume, but did
not eventually do so. The privately-printed copy forms a small pamphlet,
which has sometimes been sold at high prices—I believe £10 and
upwards. At this time I pointed out to him that the church at Pisa which he
named San Rocco could not possibly have borne that name—San Rocco
being a historical character who lived at a later date: the Church was then
re-named “San Petronio,” and this I believe is the only change
of the 20 least importance introduced into the
reprint. In December 1870 the tale was published in “The Fortnightly
Review.” The Rev. Alfred Gurney (deceased not long ago) was a great
admirer of Dante Rossetti's works. He published in 1883 a brochure named
“A Dream of Fair Women, a Study of some Pictures by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti”; he also published an essay on “Hand and Soul,”
giving a more directly religious interpretation to the story than its author
had at all intended. It is entitled “A Painter's Day-dream.”

By W. M. Rossetti: “Review of Clough's Bothie of
Toper-na-fuosich.” The only remark which I need to make on this
somewhat ponderous article is that I, as Editor of “The Germ,”
was more or less expected to do the sort of work for which other
“proprietors” had little inclination—such especially as
the regular reviewing of new poems.

By W. M. Rossetti: “Her First Season: Sonnet.” As I have said
elsewhere, my brother and I were at one time greatly addicted to writing
sonnets together to bouts-rimés: the date may have been chiefly 1848, and the practice
had, I think, quite ceased for some little while before “The
Germ” commenced in 1850. This sonnet was one of my bouts-rimés
performances. I ought to have been more chary than I was of introducing
into our seriously-intended magazine such hap-hazard things as
bouts-rimés poems: one reason for doing so was that we were often
at a loss for something to fill a spare page.

By John L. Tupper: “A Sketch from Nature.” The locality
indicated in these very spirited descriptive lines is given as
“Sydenham Wood.” When I was compiling the posthumous volume of
John Tupper's “Poems” which came out in 1897, I should, so far
as merit is concerned, have wished to include this little piece: it was
omitted solely on the ground of its being already published.

By Christina Rossetti: “An End.” Written in March 1849.

By Collinson: “The Child Jesus, a Record Typical of the Five
Sorrowful Mysteries.” Collinson, as I have already said, was hardly a
writing man, and I question whether he had produced a line of verse prior to
undertaking this by no means trivial task. The poem, like the etching which
he did for it, is deficient in native strength, nor is there much invention
in the symbolical incidents which make it up: but its general level, and
several of its lines and passages, always appeared to me, and still appear,
highly laudable, and far better than could have been reckoned for. Here and
there a telling line was supplied by Dante Rossetti. Millais, when shortly
afterwards in Oxford, found that the poem had made some sensation there. It
is singular that Collinson should, throughout his composition, speak of
Nazareth as being on the sea-shore—which is the reverse of the fact.
The Præraphaelites, 21 with all their
love of exact truth to nature, were a little arbitrary in applying the
principle; and Collinson seems to have regarded it as quite superfluous to
look into a map, and see whether Nazareth was near the sea or not. Or
possibly he trusted to Dante Rossetti's poem “Ave,” in which
likewise Nazareth is a marine town. My brother advisedly stuck to this in
1869, when I pointed out the error to him: he replied, “I fear the sea
must remain at Nazareth: you know an old painter would have made no bones if
he wanted it for his background.” I cannot say whether Collinson, if
put to it, would have pleaded the like arbitrary and almost burlesque
excuse: at any rate he made the blunder, and in a much more detailed shape
than in Rossetti's lyric. “The Child Jesus” is, I think, the
poem of any importance that he ever wrote.

By Christina Rossetti: “A Pause of Thought.” On the wrapper
of “The Germ” the writer's name is given as “Ellen
Alleyn”: this was my brother's concoction, as Christina did not care
to figure under her own name. “A Pause of Thought” was written
in February 1848, when she was but little turned of seventeen. Taken as a
personal utterance (which I presume it to be, though I never inquired as to
that, and though it was at first named “Lines in Memory of Schiller's
Der Pilgrim”), it is remarkable; for it seems to show that, even at
that early age, she aspired ardently after poetic fame, with a keen sense of
“hope deferred.”

By F. G. Stephens (called “John Seward” on the wrapper):
“The Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art.” This article
speaks for itself as being a direct outcome of the Præraphaelite
movement: its aim is to enforce personal independent endeavour, based upon
close study of nature, and to illustrate the like qualities shown in the
earlier school of art. It is more hortatory than argumentative, and is in
fact too short to develop its thesis—it indicates some main points for
reflection.

By W. Bell Scott: “Morning Sleep.” This poem delighted us
extremely when Mr. Scott sent it in reply to a request for contributions. I
still think it a noticeably fine thing, and one of his most equable pieces
of execution. It was republished in his volume of “Poems,”
1875—with some verbal changes, and shortened, I think damaged.

By Patmore: “Stars and Moon.”

By Ford Madox Brown: “On the Mechanism of a Historical
Picture”: Part 1, the Design. It is by this time a well-recognized
fact that Brown was one of the men in England, or indeed in Europe, most
capable of painting a historical picture, and it is a matter of regret that
“The Germ” came to an end before he had an opportunity of
continuing 22 and completing this serviceable
compendium of precepts. He had studied art in continental schools; but I do
not think he imported into his article much of what he had been
taught,—rather what he had thought out for himself, and had begun
putting into practice.

By W. M. Rossetti: “Fancies at Leisure.” The first three of
these were written to bouts-rimés. As to No. 1, “Noon Rest,” I have a
tolerably clear recollection that the rhymes were prescribed to me by
Millais, on one of the days in 1849 when I was sitting to him for the head
of Lorenzo in his first Præraphaelite picture from Keats's
“Isabella.” No. 4, “Sheer Waste,” was not a
bouts-rimés performance. It was chiefly the outcome of an early
afternoon spent lazily in Regent's Park.

By Walter H. Deverell: “The Light Beyond.” These sonnets are
not of very finished execution, but they have a dignified sustained tone and
some good lines. Had Deverell lived a little longer, he might probably have
proved that he had some genuine vocation as a poet, no less than a decided
pictorial faculty. He died young in February 1854.

By Dante G. Rossetti: “The Blessed Damozel.” As to this
celebrated poem much might be said; but I shall not say it here, partly
because I wrote an Introduction to a reprint (published by Messrs. Duckworth
and Co. in 1898) of the “Germ” version of the poem, which is the
earliest version extant, and in that Introduction I gave a number of
particulars forestalling what I could now set down. I will however take this
opportunity of correcting a blunder into which I fell in the Introduction
above mentioned. I called attention to “calm” and
“warm,” which make a “cockney rhyme” in stanza 9 of
this “Germ” version; and I said that, in the later version
printed in “The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine” in 1856, a change
in the line was made, substituting “swam” for
“calm,” and that the cockneyism, though shuffled, was not thus
corrected. In “The Saturday Review,” June 25, 1898, the
publication of Messrs. Duckworth was criticized; and the writer very
properly pointed out that I had made a crass mistake. “Mr.
Rossetti,” he said, “must be a very hasty reader of texts. What
is printed [in ‘The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine’] is
‘swarm,’ not ‘swam,’ and the rhyme with
‘warm’ is perfect, stultifying the editor's criticism
completely.” Probably the critic considered my error as unaccountable
as it was serious; and yet it could be fully accounted for, though not fully
excused. I had not been “a very hasty reader of texts” in the
sense indicated by “The Saturday Review.” The fact is that, not
possessing a copy of “The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,” I had
referred to the book brought out by Mr. William Sharp in 1882, 23 “Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a
Study,” in which are given (with every appearance of care and
completeness) the passages of “The Blessed Damozel” as they
appeared in “The Germ,” with the alterations printed in
“The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine.” From the latter, the line
in question is given by Mr. Sharp as “Waste sea of worlds that
swam”; and I, supposing him to be correct (though I allow that memory
ought to have taught me the contrary), reproduced that line to the same
effect. “Always verify your references” is a precept to which
editors and commentators cannot too carefully conform. Many thanks to the
writer in “The Saturday Review” for showing that, while I, and
also Mr. Sharp, had made a mistake, my brother had made none.

By W. M. Rossetti: “Review of the Strayed Reveller and other Poems,
by A.” As we all now know, “A.” was Matthew Arnold, and
this was his first published volume; but I, at the time of writing the
review, knew nothing of the identity of “A.,” and even had I
been told that he was Matthew Arnold, that would have carried the matter
hardly at all further. I remember that, after I had written the whole or
most of this admiring review, I found that the volume had been abused in
“Blackwood's Magazine”; a fact of sweet savour to myself and
other P.R.B.'s, as we entertained a hearty detestation of that magazine,
with its blustering “Christopher North,” and its traditions of
truculency against Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Tennyson, Ruskin, and some
others. I read “A.'s” volume with great attention, and piqued
myself somewhat upon having introduced into my review some reference
(detailed or cursory) to every poem in it. Possibly (but I hardly think so)
the critique was afterwards shortened, so as to bereave it of this
merit.

By Madox Brown (the etching) and by W. M. Rossetti (the verses):
“Cordelia.” For the belated No. 3 of “The Germ” we
were much at a loss for an illustration. Mr. Brown offered to accommodate us
by etching this design, one of a series from “King Lear” which
he had drawn in Paris in 1844. That series, though not very sightly to the
eye, is of extraordinary value for dramatic insight and energy. We gladly
accepted, and he produced this etching with very little self-satisfaction,
so far as the technique of execution is concerned. Dante Rossetti was to
have furnished some verses for the etching; but for this he did not find
time, so I was put in as a stopgap, and I am not sure that any reader of
“The Germ” has ever thanked me for my obedience to the call of
duty.

By Patmore: “Essay on Macbeth.” In this interesting and
well-considered paper Mr. Patmore assumes that he was the first person to
put into writing the opinion that Macbeth, before meeting with the witches,
had already definitely conceived and imparted the idea of 24 obtaining the crown of Scotland by wrongful means. I
have always felt some uncertainty whether Mr. Patmore was really the first;
if he was, it certainly seems strange that the train of reasoning which he
furnishes in this essay—forcible, even if we do not regard it as
unanswerable—should not have presented itself to the mind and pen of
some earlier writer. The Essay appears to have been left incomplete in at
least one respect. In speaking of “the fifth scene,” the author
refers to “postponement of comment” upon Macbeth's letter to his
wife, and he “leaves it for the present.” But the comment never
comes.

By Christina Rossetti: “Repining.” This rather long poem,
written in December 1847 on a still broader scale, was never republished by
the authoress, although all her other poems in “The Germ” were
so. She did not think that its deservings were such as to call for
republication. I apprehend that herein she exercised a wise discretion: none
the less, when I was compiling the volume of her “New Poems,”
issued in 1896, I included “Repining”—for I think that
some of the considerations which apply to the works of an author while
living do not remain in anything like full force after death.

By Dante G. Rossetti: “The Carillon, Antwerp and Bruges.”
These verses, and some others further on in “The Germ,” were
written during the brief trip, in Paris and Belgium, which my brother made
along with Holman-Hunt in the autumn of 1849. He did not republish
“The Carillon”; but he left in MS. an abridged form of it, with
the title “Antwerp and Bruges,” and this I included in his
“Collected Works,” 1886. The only important change was the
omission of stanzas 1 and 4.

By Dante G. Rossetti: “From the Cliffs, Noon.” Altering some
phrases in this lyric, and adding two stanzas, Rossetti republished it under
the name of “The Sea-limits.”

By W. M. Rossetti: “Fancies at Leisure.” The first four were
written to bouts-rimés: not the fifth, “The Fire Smouldering,” which is, I
think, as old as 1848, or even 1847.

By John L. Tupper: “Papers of the MS. Society; No. 1, An Incident
in the Siege of Troy.” This grotesque outburst, though sprightly and
clever, was not well-suited to the pages of “The Germ.” My
attention had been called to it at an earlier date, when my editorial power
was unmodified, but I then staved it off, and indeed John Tupper himself did
not deem it appropriate. It will be observed that “MS. Society”
is said not to mean “Manuscript Society.” I forget what it did
mean—possibly “Medical Student Society.” The whole thing
is replete with semi-private sous-entendus, and banter at Free Trade, medical and
anatomical matters, etc. The like general remarks apply to 25 No. 4, “Smoke,” by the same writer. It is a
rollicking semi-intelligible chaunt, a forcible thing in its way, proper in
the first instance (I believe) to a sort of club of medical students, Royal
Academy students, and others—highly-seasoned smokers most of
them—in which John Tupper exercised a quasi-privacy, and was called
(owing to his thinness, much over-stated in the poem) “The
Spectro-cadaveral King.” No. 5, “Rain,” is again by John
Tupper, and is the only item in “The Papers of the MS. Society”
which seems, in tone and method, to be reasonably appropriate for “The
Germ.”

By Alexander Tupper: No. 2, “Swift's Dunces.”

By George I. F. Tupper: No. 3, “Mental Scales.” This also, in
the scrappy condition which it here presents, reads rather as a joke than as
a serious proposition: I believe it was meant for the latter.

By John L. Tupper: “Viola and Olivia.” The verses are not of
much significance. The etching by Deverell, however defective in technique,
claims more attention, as the Viola was drawn from Miss Elizabeth Eleanor
Siddal, whom Deverell had observed in a bonnet-shop some few months before
the etching was done, and who in 1860 became the wife of Dante Rossetti.
This face does not give much idea of hers, and yet it is not unlike her in a
way. The face of Olivia bears some resemblance to Christina Rossetti: I
think however that it was drawn, not from her, but from a sister of the
artist.

By John Orchard: “A Dialogue on Art.” The brief remarks
prefacing this dialogue were written by Dante Rossetti. The diction of the
dialogue itself was also, at Orchard's instance, revised to some minor
extent by my brother, and I dare say by me. Orchard was a painter of whom
perhaps no memory remains at the present day: he exhibited some few
pictures, among which I can dimly remember one of “The Flight of
Archbishop Becket from England.” His age may, I suppose, have been
twenty-seven or twenty-eight years at the date of his death. In our circle
he was unknown; but, conceiving a deep admiration for Rossetti's first
exhibited picture (1849), “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,” he
wrote to him, enclosing a sonnet upon the picture—a very bad sonnet in
all executive respects, and far from giving promise of the spirited, if
unequal, poetic treatment which we find in the lines in “The
Germ,” “On a Whit-Sunday Morn in the Month of May.” This
led to a call from Orchard to Rossetti. I think there was only one call, and
I, as well as my brother, saw him on that occasion. Afterwards, he sent this
dialogue for “The Germ.” The dialogue has always, and I think
justly, been regarded as a remarkable performance. The form of expression is
not impeccable, but there is a large amount of eloquence, coming in aid of
definite and expansive thought. From 26 what is
here said it will be understood that Orchard was quite unconnected with the
P.R.B. He expressed opinions of his own which may indeed have assimilated in
some points to theirs, but he was not in any degree the mouthpiece of their
organization, nor prompted by any member of the Brotherhood. In the
dialogue, the speaker whose opinions appear manifestly to represent those of
Orchard himself is Christian, who is mostly backed up by Sophon. Christian
forces ideas of purism or puritanism to an extreme, beyond anything which I
can recollect as characterizing any of the P.R.B. His upholding of the
painters who preceded Raphael as the best men for nurturing new and noble
developments of art in our own day was more in their line. In my brother's
prefatory note a question is raised of publishing any other writings which
Orchard might have left behind. None such, however, were found. Dr. W. C.
Bennett (afterwards known as the author of “Songs for Sailors,”
etc.), who had been intimate with Orchard, aided my brother in his
researches.

By Dante G. Rossetti: “Pax Vobis.” Republished by the author,
with some alterations, under the title of “World's Worth.”

By Dante G. Rossetti: “Sonnets for Pictures.” No. 1, “A
Virgin and Child, by Hans Memmeling,” was not reprinted by Rossetti,
but is included (with a few verbal alterations made by him in MS.) in his
“Collected Works.” No. 2, “A Marriage of St. Katherine, by
the same.” A similar observation. No. 3, “A Dance of Nymphs, by
Andrea Mantegna,” was republished by Rossetti, with some verbal
alterations. No. 4, “A Venetian Pastoral, by
Giorgione”—the like. The alterations here are of considerable
moment. Rossetti, in a published letter of October 8, 1849, referred to the
Giorgione picture as follows: “A Pastoral—at least, a kind of
Pastoral—by Giorgione, which is so intensely fine that I condescended
to sit down before it and write a sonnet. You must have heard me rave about
the engraving before, and, I fancy, have seen it yourself. There is a woman,
naked, at one side, who is dipping a glass vessel into a well, and in the
centre two men and another naked woman, who seem to have paused for a moment
in playing on the musical instruments which they hold.” Nos. 5 and 6,
“Angelica Rescued from the Sea-Monster, by Ingres,” were also
reprinted by the author, with scarcely any alteration. Patmore, on reading
these two sonnets, was much struck with their truthfulness of quality, as
being descriptive of paintings. As to some of the other sonnets, Mr. W. M.
Hardinge wrote in “Temple Bar,” several years ago, an article
containing various pertinent and acute remarks.

27

By W. M. Rossetti: “Review of Browning's Christmas Eve and Easter
Day.” The only observation I need make upon this review—which
was merely intended as introductory to a fuller estimate of the poem, to
appear in an ensuing number of “The Germ”—is that it
exemplifies that profound cultus of Robert Browning which, commenced by
Dante Rossetti, had permeated the whole of the Præraphaelite
Brotherhood, and formed, not less than some other ideas, a bond of union
among them. It will be readily understood that, in Mr. Stephens's article,
“Modern Giants,” the person spoken of as “the greatest
perhaps of modern poets” is Browning.

By W. M. Rossetti: “The Evil under the Sun: Sonnet.” This
sonnet was composed in August 1849, when the great cause of the Hungarian
insurrection against Austrian tyranny was, like revolutionary movements
elsewhere, precipitating towards its fall. My original title for the sonnet
was, “For the General Oppression of the Better by the Worse Cause,
Autumn 1849.” When the verses had to be published in “The
Germ,” a magazine which did not aim at taking any side in politics, it
was thought that this title was inappropriate, and the other was
substituted. At a much later date the sonnet was reprinted with yet another
and more significant title, “Democracy Down-trodden.”

Having now disposed of “The Germ” in general, and singly of
most of the articles in it, I have very little to add. The project of
reprinting the magazine was conceived by its present publisher, Mr. Stock,
many years ago—perhaps about 1883. At that time several contributors
assented, but others declined, and considerations of copyright made it
impracticable to proceed with the project. It is only now that lapse of time
has disposed of the copyright question, and Mr. Stock is free to act as he
likes. I was from the first one of those (the majority) who assented to the
republication, acting herein on behalf of my brother, then lately deceased,
as well as of myself. I am quite aware that some of the articles in
“The Germ” are far from good, and some others, though good in
essentials, are to a certain extent juvenile; but juvenility is anything but
uninteresting when it is that of such men as Coventry Patmore and Dante
Rossetti. “The Germ” contains nothing of which, in spirit and in
purport, the writers need be ashamed. If people like to read it without
paying fancy prices for the original edition, they were and are, so far as I
am concerned, welcome to do so. Before Mr. Stock's long-standing scheme
could be legally carried into effect, an American publisher, Mr. Mosher,
towards the close of 1898, brought out a handsome reprint of “The
Germ” (not in any wise a 28 facsimile),
and a few of the copies were placed on sale in London.{3} Mr. Mosher gave as
an introduction to his volume an article by the late J. Ashcroft Noble which
originally appeared in an English magazine in May 1882. This article is
entitled “A Pre-Raphaelite Magazine.” It is written in a spirit
of generous sympathy, and is mostly correct in its facts. I may here mention
another article on “The Germ,” also published, towards 1868, in
some magazine. It is by John Burnell Payne (originally a Clergyman of the
Church of England), who died young in 1869. He wrote a triplet of articles,
named “Præraphaelite Poetry and Painting,” of which Part
I. is on “The Germ.” He expresses himself sympathetically
enough; but his main drift is to show that the Præraphaelite movement,
after passing through some immature stages, developed into a
quasi-Renaissance result. A perusal of his paper will show that Mr. Payne
was one of the persons who supposed Chiaro dell'Erma, the hero of
“Hand and Soul,” to have been a real painter, author of an
extant picture.

{3} I have seen in the “Irish Figaro”, May 6, 1899, a very
pleasant notice, signed “J. Reid,” of this reprint.

Mr. Stock's reprint is of the facsimile order, and even faults of print
are reproduced. I am not called upon to say with any precision what there
are. On page 45 I observe “ear,” which should be
“car”; on page 62, Angilico, and Rossini (for Rosini). On page
155 the words, “I believe that the thought-wrapped philosopher,”
ought to begin a new sentence. On page 159 “Phyrnes” ought of
course to be “Phrynes.” The punctuation could frequently be
improved.

I will conclude by appending a little list (it makes no pretension to
completeness) of writings bearing upon the Præraphaelite Brotherhood
and its members. Writings of that kind are by this date rather numerous; but
some readers of the present pages may not well know where to find them, and
might none the less be inclined to read up the subject a little. I give
these works in the order (as far as I know it) of their dates, without any
attempt to indicate the degree of their importance. That is a question on
which I naturally entertain opinions of my own, but I shall not intrude them
upon the reader.

J. Guille Millais: Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais,
1899.

Percy H. Bate: The English Præraphaelite Painters, 1899.

H. C. Marillier: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1899.

Edited by W. M. Rossetti: Præraphaelite Diaries and Letters,
1899.

There are also books on Burne-Jones and Willaim Morris with which I am
not accurately acquainted. It seems strange that no memoir of Thomas Woolner
has yet been published; a fine sculptor and remarkable man known to and
appreciated by all sorts of people, and certain to have figured extensively
in correspondence. He died in October 1892. Mr. Holman-Hunt is understood to
have been engaged for a long while past upon a book on Præraphaelitism
30 which would cast into the shade most of the
earlier literature on the subject.

W. M. ROSSETTI
London, July 1899.

N.B.—When the third number of the magazine was about to appear,
with a change of title from “The Germ” to “Art and
Poetry,” two fly-sheets were drawn up, more, I think, by Messrs.
Tupper the printing-firm than by myself. They contain some “Opinions
of the Press,” already referred to in this Introduction, and an
explanation as to the change of title. The fly-sheets appear in facsimile as
follows:

“The Germ”

The Subscribers to this Periodical are respectfully informed that in
future it will appear under the title of “Art and Poetry”
instead of the original arbitrary one, which occasioned much
misapprehension—This alteration will not be productive of any ill
consequence, as the title has never occurred in the work itself, and Label
will be supplied for placing on the old wrappers, so as to make them
conformable to the new—

It should also be noticed that the Numbers will henceforward be published
on the last day of the Month for which they are dated—

Town Subscribers will oblige by filling up & returning the
accompanying form, which will ensure the Numbers being duly forwarded as
directed.—

Country Subscribers may obtain their copies by kindly forwarding their
orders to any Booksellers in their respective Neighborhoods.—

Opinions of the press.

“... Original Poems, stories to develop thought and principle, essays
concerning Art & other subjects, are the materials which are to compose
this unique addition to our periodical literature Among the poetry, there
are some rare gems of poetic conception; among the prose essays, we notice
“the Subject in Art” which treats of Art itself in a noble and
lofty tone, with the view which he must take of it who would, in the truest
sense of the word, be an Artist, and another paper, not less interesting, on
“the Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art” A well executed
Etching in the medieval style, accompanies each number”

John Bull.

“... There are so many original and beautiful thoughts in these
pages—indeed some of the poems & tales are in themselves so
beautiful in spirit & form—that we have hopes of the writers,
when they shall have got rid of those ghosts of mediæval art which now
haunt their every page. The essay ‘On the Mechanism of a Historical
Picture’ is a good practical treatise, and indicates the hand of
writing which is much wanted among artists”

Morning Chronicle.

“We depart from our usual plan of noticing the periodicals under
one heading, for the purpose of introducing to our readers a new aspirant
for public favour, which has pecu liar and uncommon claims to attention, for
in design & execution it differs from all other periodicals ... A
periodical largely occupied with poetry wears an unpromising aspect to
readers who have learned from experience what nonsensical stuff most
fugitive Magazine poetry is.... But, when they have read a few extracts
which we propose to make, we think they will own that for once appearances
are deceitful.... That the contents of this work are the productions of
no common minds, the following extracts will sufficiently prove.... We
have not space to take any specimens of the prose; but the essays on Art are
conceived with an equal appreciation of its meaning &
requirements. Being such, this work has our heartiest wishes for its
success, but we scarcely dare to hope that it may win the popularity
it deserves. The truth is that it is too good for the time. It is not
material enough for the age”

Critic.

“... It bears unquestionable evidences of true inspirations and,
in fact, is so thoroughly spiritual that it is more likely to find
‘the fit audience though few’ than to attract the multitude ...
The prose articles are much to our taste ... We know, however, of no
periodical of the time which is so genuinely poetical and artistic in its
tone.”

Standard of Freedom.

No. 1. (Price One Shilling.) JANUARY, 1850.

With an Etching by W. HOLMAN HUNT.

The Germ:

Thoughts towards Nature
In Poetry, Literature, and Art.

When whoso merely hath a little thoughtWill plainly think the thought which is in him,—Not imaging another's bright or dim,Not mangling with new words what others taught;When whoso speaks, from having either soughtOr only found,—will speak, not just to skimA shallow surface with words made and trim,But in that very speech the matter brought:Be not too keen to cry—“So this is all!—A thing I might myself have thought as well,But would not say it, for it was not worth!”Ask: “Is this truth?” For is it still to tellThat, be the theme a point or the whole earth,Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

It is requested that those who may have by them any un-published Poems,
Essays, or other articles appearing to coincide with the views in which this
Periodical is established, and who may feel desirous of contributing such
papers—will forward them, for the approval of the Editor, to the
Office of publication. It may be relied upon that the most sincere attention
will be paid to the examination of all manuscripts, whether they be
eventually accepted or declined.

[Illustration]

My Beautiful Lady

I love my lady; she is very fair;Her brow is white, and bound by simple hair;Her spirit sits aloof, and high,Altho' it looks thro' her soft eyeSweetly and tenderly.

As a young forest, when the wind drives thro',My life is stirred when she breaks on my view.Altho' her beauty has such power,Her soul is like the simple flowerTrembling beneath a shower.

As bliss of saints, when dreaming of large wings,The bloom around her fancied presence flings,I feast and wile her absence, byPressing her choice hand passionately—Imagining her sigh.

My lady's voice, altho' so very mild,Maketh me feel as strong wine would a child;My lady's touch, however slight,Moves all my senses with its might,Like to a sudden fright.

A hawk poised high in air, whose nerved wing-tipsTremble with might suppressed, before he dips,—In vigilance, not more intenseThan I; when her word's gentle senseMakes full-eyed my suspense.

Her mention of a thing—august or poor,Makes it seem nobler than it was before:As where the sun strikes, life will gush,And what is pale receive a flush,Rich hues—a richer blush.

2My lady's name, if I hear strangers use,—Not meaning her—seems like a lax misuse.I love none by my lady's name;Rose, Maud, or Grace, are all the same,So blank, so very tame.

My lady walks as I have seen a swanSwim thro' the water just where the sun shone.There ends of willow branches ride,Quivering with the current's glide,By the deep river-side.

Whene'er she moves there are fresh beauties stirred;As the sunned bosom of a humming-birdAt each pant shows some fiery hue,Burns gold, intensest green or blue:The same, yet ever new.

What time she walketh under flowering May,I am quite sure the scented blossoms say,“O lady with the sunlit hair!“Stay, and drink our odorous air—“The incense that we bear:

She made no answer. When we reached the stoneWhere the shell fragments on the grass were strewn,Close to the margin of a rill;“The air,” she said, “seems damp and
chill,“We'll go home if you will.”

4

“Make not my pathway dull so soon,” I cried,“See how those vast cloudpiles in sun-glow dyed,“Roll out their splendour: while the breeze“Lifts gold from leaf to leaf, as these“Ash saplings move at ease.”

Piercing the silence in our ears, a birdThrew some notes up just then, and quickly stirredThe covert birds that startled, sentTheir music thro' the air; leaves lentTheir rustling and blent,

Until the whole of the blue warmth was filledSo much with sun and sound, that the air thrilled.She gleamed, wrapt in the dying day'sGlory: altho' she spoke no praise,I saw much in her gaze.

Then, flushed with resolution, I told all;—The mighty love I bore her,—how would pallMy very breath of life, if sheFor ever breathed not hers with me;—Could I a cherub be,

How, idly hoping to enrich her grace,I would snatch jewels from the orbs of space;—Then back thro' the vague distance beat,Glowing with joy her smile to meet,And heap them round her feet.

Her waist shook to my arm. She bowed her head,Silent, with hands clasped and arms straightened:(Just then we both heard a church bell)O God! It is not right to tell:But I remember well

Each breast swelled with its pleasure, and her wholeBosom grew heavy with love; the swift rollOf new sensations dimmed her eyes,Half closing them in ecstasies,Turned full against the skies.

The rest is gone; it seemed a whirling round—No pressure of my feet upon the ground:But even when parted from her, brightShowed all; yea, to my throbbing sightThe dark was starred with light.

5

Of My Lady In Death

All seems a painted show. I lookUp thro' the bloom that's shedBy leaves above my head,And feel the earnest life forsookAll being, when she died:—My heart halts, hot and driedAs the parched course where once a brookThro' fresh growth used to flow,—Because her past is nowNo more than stories in a printed book.

The grass has grown above that breast,Now cold and sadly still,My happy face felt thrill:—Her mouth's mere tones so much expressed!Those lips are now close set,—Lips which my own have met;Her eyelids by the earth are pressed;Damp earth weighs on her eyes;Damp earth shuts out the skies.My lady rests her heavy, heavy rest.

To see her slim perfection sweep,Trembling impatiently,With eager gaze at me!Her feet spared little things that creep:—“We've no more right,” she'd say,“In this the earth than they.”Some remember it but to weep.Her hand's slight weight was such,Care lightened with its touch;My lady sleeps her heavy, heavy sleep.

6My day-dreams hovered round her brow;Now o'er its perfect formsGo softly real worms.Stern death, it was a cruel blow,To cut that sweet girl's lifeSharply, as with a knife.Cursed life that lets me live and grow,Just as a poisonous root,From which rank blossoms shoot;My lady's laid so very, very low.

Dread power, grief cries aloud,
“unjust,”—To let her young life playIts easy, natural way;Then, with an unexpected thrust,Strike out the life you lent,Just when her feelings blentWith those around whom she saw trustHer willing power to bless,For their whole happiness;My lady moulders into common dust.

Small birds twitter and peck the weedsThat wave above her head,Shading her lowly bed:Their brisk wings burst light globes of seeds,Scattering the downy prideOf dandelions, wide:Speargrass stoops with watery beads:The weight from its fine tipsOccasionally drips:The bee drops in the mallow-bloom, and feeds.

About her window, at the dawn,From the vine's crooked boughsBirds chirupped an arouse:Flies, buzzing, strengthened with the morn;—She'll not hear them againAt random strike the pane:No more upon the close-cut lawn,Her garment's sun-white hemBend the prim daisy's stem,In walking forth to view what flowers are born.

7No more she'll watch the dark-green ringsStained quaintly on the lea,To image fairy glee;While thro' dry grass a faint breeze sings,And swarms of insects revelAlong the sultry level:—No more will watch their brilliant wings,Now lightly dip, now soar,Then sink, and rise once more.My lady's death makes dear these trivial things.

Within a huge tree's steady shade,When resting from our walk,How pleasant was her talk!Elegant deer leaped o'er the glade,Or stood with wide bright eyes,Staring a short surprise:Outside the shadow cows were laid,Chewing with drowsy eyeTheir cuds complacently:Dim for sunshine drew near a milking-maid.

Rooks cawed and labored thro' the heat;Each wing-flap seemed to makeTheir weary bodies ache:The swallows, tho' so very fleet,Made breathless pauses thereAt something in the air:—All disappeared: our pulses beatDistincter throbs: then eachTurned and kissed, without speech,—She trembling, from her mouth down to her feet.

My head sank on her bosom's heave,So close to the soft skinI heard the life within.My forehead felt her coolly breathe,As with her breath it rose:To perfect my reposeHer two arms clasped my neck. The eveSpread silently around,A hush along the ground,And all sound with the sunlight seemed to leave.

8By my still gaze she must have knownThe mighty bliss that filledMy whole soul, for she thrilled,Drooping her face, flushed, on my own;I felt that it was suchBy its light warmth of touch.My lady was with me alone:That vague sensation broughtMore real joy than thought.I am without her now, truly alone.

We had no heed of time: the causeWas that our minds were quiteAbsorbed in our delight,Silently blessed. Such stillness awes,And stops with doubt, the breath,Like the mute doom of death.I felt Time's instantaneous pause;An instant, on my eyeFlashed all Eternity:—I started, as if clutched by wild beasts' claws,

Awakened from some dizzy swoon:I felt strange vacant fears,With singings in my ears,And wondered that the pallid moonSwung round the dome of nightWith such tremendous might.A sweetness, like the air of June,Next paled me with suspense,A weight of clinging sense—Some hidden evil would burst on me soon.

My lady's love has passed away,To know that it is soTo me is living woe.That body lies in cold decay,Which held the vital soulWhen she was my life's soul.Bitter mockery it was to say—“Our souls are as the same:”My words now sting like shame;Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.

9It was as if a fiery dartPassed seething thro' my brainWhen I beheld her lainThere whence in life she did not part.Her beauty by degrees,Sank, sharpened with disease:The heavy sinking at her heartSucked hollows in her cheek,And made her eyelids weak,Tho' oft they'd open wide with sudden start.

Her gaze, grown large with fate, was castWhere my mute agoniesMade more sad her sad eyes:Her breath caught with short plucks and fast:—Then one hot choking strain.She never breathed again:I had the look which was her last:Even after breath was gone,Her love one moment shone,—Then slowly closed, and hope for ever passed.

Silence seemed to start in spaceWhen first the bell's harsh tollRang for my lady's soul.Vitality was hell; her graceThe shadow of a dream:Things then did scarcely seem:Oblivion's stroke fell like a mace:As a tree that's just hewnI dropped, in a dead swoon,And lay a long time cold upon my face.

10Earth had one quarter turned beforeMy miserable fatePressed on with its whole weight.My sense came back; and, shivering o'er,I felt a pain to bearThe sun's keen cruel glare;It seemed not warm as heretofore.Oh, never more its raysWill satisfy my gaze.No more; no more; oh, never any more.

The Love of Beauty

John Boccaccio, love's own squire, deep swornIn service to all beauty, joy, and rest,—When first the love-earned royal Mary press'd,To her smooth cheek, his pale brows, passion-worn,—'Tis said, he, by her grace nigh frenzied, tornBy longings unattainable, address'dTo his chief friend most strange misgivings, lestSome madness in his brain had thence been born.The artist-mind alone can feel his meaning:—Such as have watched the battle-rank'd arrayOf sunset, or the face of girlhood seen inLine-blending twilight, with sick hope. Oh! theyMay feed desire on some fond bosom leaning:But where shall such their thirst of Nature stay?

11

The Subject in Art

(No. 1.)

If Painting and Sculpture delight us like other works of ingenuity,
merely from the difficulties they surmount; like an ‘egg in a
bottle,’ a tree made out of stone, or a face made of pigment; and the
pleasure we receive, is our wonder at the achievement; then, to such as so
believe, this treatise is not written. But if, as the writer conceives,
works of Fine Art delight us by the interest the objects they depict excite
in the beholder, just as those objects in nature would excite his interest;
if by any association of ideas in the one case, by the same in the other,
without reference to the representations being other than the objects they
represent:—then, to such as so believe, the following upon
‘SUBJECT’ is addressed. Whilst, at the same time, it is not
disallowed that a subsequent pleasure may and does result, upon reflecting
that the objects contemplated were the work of human ingenuity.

Now the subject to be treated, is the ‘subject’ of Painter
and Sculptor; what ought to be the nature of that ‘subject,’ how
far that subject may be drawn from past or present time with advantage, how
far the subject may tend to confer upon its embodiment the title,
‘High Art,’ how far the subject may tend to confer upon its
embodiment the title ‘Low Art;’ what is ‘High Art,’
what is ‘Low Art’?

To begin then (at the end) with ‘High Art.’ However we may
differ as to facts, the principle will be readily granted, that ‘High
Art,’ i. e. Art, par excellence, Art, in its most exalted
character, addresses pre-eminently the highest attributes of man, viz.: his
mental and his moral faculties.

‘Low Art,’ or Art in its less exalted character, is that
which addresses the less exalted attributes of man, viz.: his mere sensory
faculties, without affecting the mind or heart, excepting through the
volitional agency of the observer.

These definitions are too general and simple to be disputed; but before
we endeavour to define more particularly, let us analyze the subject, and
see what it will yield.

All the works which remain to us of the Ancients, and this appears
somewhat remarkable, are, with the exception of those by incompetent
artists, universally admitted to be ‘High Art.’ Now do we afford
them this high title, because all remnants of the antique world, by tempting
a comparison between what was, and is, will set the mental faculties at
work, and thus address the 12 highest
attributes of man? Or, as this is owing to the agency of the observer, and
not to the subject represented, are we to seek for the cause in the subjects
themselves!

Let us examine the subjects. They are mostly in sculpture; but this
cannot be the cause, unless all modern sculpture be considered ‘High
Art.’ This is leaving out of the question in both ages, all works
badly executed, and obviously incorrect, of which there are numerous
examples both ancient and modern.

The subjects we find in sculpture are, in “the round,” mostly
men or women in thoughtful or impassioned action: sometimes they are indeed
acting physically; but then, as in the Jason adjusting his Sandal, acting by
mechanical impulse, and thinking or looking in another direction. In relievo
we have an historical combat, such as that between the Centaurs and
Lapithæ; sometimes a group in conversation, sometimes a recitation of
verses to the Lyre; a dance, or religious procession.

As to the first class in “the round,” as they seem to appeal
to the intellectual, and often to the moral faculties, they are naturally,
and according to the broad definition, works of ‘High Art.’ Of
the relievo, the historical combat appeals to the passions; and, being
historical, probably to the intellect. The like may be said of the
conversational groups, and lyrical recitation which follow. The dance
appeals to the passions and the intellect; since the intellect recognises
therein an order and design, her own planning; while the solemn, modest
demeanour in the religious procession speaks to the heart and the mind. The
same remarks will apply to the few ancient paintings we possess, always
excluding such merely decorative works as are not fine art at all.

Thus it appears that all these works of the ancients might
rationally have been denominated works of ‘High Art;’ and here
we remark the difference between the hypothetical or rational, and the
historical account of facts; for though here is reason enough why
ancient art might have been denominated ‘High Art,’ that
it was so denominated on this account, is a position not capable of
proof: whereas, in all probability, the true account of the matter runs
thus—The works of antiquity awe us by their time-hallowed presence;
the mind is sent into a serious contemplation of things; and, the subject
itself in nowise contravening, we attribute all this potent effect to the
agency of the subject before us, and ‘High Art,’ it becomes
then and for ever, with all such as “follow its
cut.” But then as this was so named, not from the abstract cause, but
from a result and effect; when a new work is produced in a similar
spirit, but clothed in a dissimilar matter, and the critics have to settle
to what class 13 of art it belongs,—then
is the new work dragged up to fight with the old one, like the poor beggar
Irus in front of Ulysses; then are they turned over and applied, each to
each, like the two triangles in Euclid; and then, if they square, fit and
tally in every quarter—with the nude to the draped in the one, as the
nude to the draped in the other—with the standing to the sitting in
the one, as the standing to the sitting in the other—with the fat to
the lean in the one, as the fat to the lean in the other—with the
young to the old in the one, as the young to the old in the other—with
head to body, as head to body; and nose to knee, as nose to knee, &c.
&c., (and the critics have done a great deal)—then is the work
oracularly pronounced one of ‘High Art;’ and the obsequious
artist is pleased to consider it is.

But if, per contra, as in the former case, the works are not to be
literally reconciled, though wrought in the self-same spirit; then this
unfortunate creature of genius is degraded into a lower rank of art; and the
artist, if he have faith in the learned, despairs; or, if he have none, he
swears. But listen, an artist speaks: “If I have genius to
produce a work in the true spirit of high art, and yet am so ignorant of its
principles, that I scarce know whereon the success of the work depends, and
scarcely whether I have succeeded or no; with this ignorance and this power,
what needs your knowledge or your reasoning, seeing that nature is
all-sufficient, and produces a painter as she produces a plant?” To
the artist (the last of his race), who spoke thus, it is answered, that
science is not meant for him, if he like it not, seeing he can do without
it, and seeing, moreover, that with it alone he can never do. Science
here does not make; it unmakes, wonderingly to find the making of what God
has made—of what God has made through the poet, leading him blindly by
a path which he has not known; this path science follows slowly and in
wonder. But though science is not to make the artist, there is no reason in
nature that the artist reject it. Still, science is properly the birthright
of the critic; 'tis his all in all. It shows him poets, painters, sculptors,
his fellow men, often his inferiors in their want of it, his superiors in
the ability to do what he cannot do; it teaches him to love them as angels
bringing him food which he cannot attain, and to venerate their works
as a gift from the Creator.

But to return to the critical errors relating to ‘High Art.’
While the constituents of high art were unknown, whilst its abstract
principles were unsought, and whilst it was only recognized in the concrete,
the critics, certainly guilty of the most unpardonable blindness, blundered
up to the masses of ‘High Art,’ left by 14 antiquity, saying, “there let us fix our
observatory,” and here came out perspective glass, and callipers and
compasses; and here they made squares and triangles, and circles, and
ellipses, for, said they, “this is ‘High Art,’ and this
hath certain proportions;” then in the logic of their hearts, they
continued, “all these proportions we know by admeasurement, whatsoever
hath these is ‘High Art,’ whatsoever hath not, is ‘Low
Art.’” This was as certain as the fact that the sun is a globe of
glowing charcoal, because forsooth they both yield light and heat. Now if
the phantom of a then embryon-electrician had arisen and told them that
their “high art marbles possessed an electric influence, which, acting
in the brain of the observer, would awake in him emotions of so exalted a
character, that he forthwith, inevitably nodding at them, must utter the
tremendous syllables ‘High Art;’” he, the then
embryon-electrician, from that age withheld to bless and irradiate the
physiology of ours, would have done something more to the purpose than all
the critics and the compasses.

Thus then we see, that the antique, however successfully it may have
wrought, is not our model; for, according to that faith demanded at setting
out, fine art delights us from its being the semblance of what in nature
delights. Now, as the artist does not work by the instrumentality of rule
and science, but mainly by an instinctive impulse; if he copy the antique,
unable as he is to segregate the merely delectable matter, he must needs
copy the whole, and thereby multiply models, which the casting-man can do
equally well; whereas if he copy nature, with a like inability to
distinguish that delectable attribute which allures him to copy her, and
under the same necessity of copying the whole, to make sure of this
“tenant of nowhere;” we then have the artist, the instructed of
nature, fulfilling his natural capacity, while his works we have as manifold
yet various as nature's own thoughts for her children.

But reverting to the subject, it was stated at the beginning that
‘Fine Art’ delights, by presenting us with objects, which in
nature delight us; and ‘High Art’ was defined, that which
addresses the intellect; and hence it might appear, as delight is an emotion
of the mind, that ‘Low Art,’ which addresses the senses, is not
Fine Art at all. But then it must be remembered, that it was neither stated
of ‘Fine Art,’ nor of ‘High Art,’ that it always
delights; and again, that delight is not entirely mental. To point out the
confines of high and low art, where the one terminates and the other
commences, would be difficult, if not impracticable without sub-defining or
circumscribing the import of the terms, pain, pleasure, delight, sensory,
mental, psychical, intellectual, objective, 15
subjective, &c. &c.; and then, as little or nothing would be gained
mainly pertinent to the subject, it must be content to receive no better
definitions than those broad ones already laid down, with their latitude
somewhat corrected by practical examples. Yet before proceeding to give
these examples, it might be remarked of ‘High Art,’ that it
always might, if it do not always excite some portion of delight,
irrespective of that subsequent delight consequent upon the examination of a
curiosity; that its function is sometimes, with this portion of delight, to
commingle grief or distress, and that it may, (though this is not its
function,) excite mental anguish, and by a reflex action, actual body pain.
Now then to particularize, by example; let us suppose a perfect and correct
painting of a stone, a common stone such as we walk over. Now although this
subject might to a religious man, suggest a text of scripture; and to the
geologist a theory of scientific interest; yet its general effect upon the
average number of observers will be readily allowed to be more that of
wonder or admiration at a triumph over the apparently impossible (to make a
round stone upon a flat piece of canvass) than at aught else the subject
possesses. Now a subject such as this belongs to such very low art, that it
narrowly illudes precipitation over the confines of Fine Art; yet, that it
is Fine Art is indisputable, since no mere mechanic artisan, or other than
one specially gifted by nature, could produce it. This then shall introduce
us to “Subject.” This subject then, standing where fine art
gradually confines with mechanic art, and almost midway between them; of no
use nor beauty; but to be wondered at as a curiosity; is a subject of
scandalous import to the artist, to the artist thus gifted by nature with a
talent to reproduce her fleeting and wondrous forms. But if, as the writer
doubts, nature could afford a monster so qualified for a poet, yet destitute
of poetical genius; then the scandal attaches if he attempt a step in
advance, or neglect to join himself to those, a most useful class of
mechanic artists, who illustrate the sciences by drawing and diagram.

But as the subject supposed is one never treated in painting; only
instanced, in fact, to exemplify an extreme; let us consider the merits of a
subject really practical, such as ‘dead game,’ or ‘a
basket of fruit;’ and the first general idea such a subject will
excite is simply that of food, ‘something to eat.’ For
though fruit on the tree, or a pheasant in the air, is a portion of nature
and properly belongs to the section, ‘Landscape,’ a division of
art intellectual enough; yet gather the fruit or bring down the pheasant,
and you presently bring down the poetry with it; and although Sterne could
sentimentalize upon a dead ass; and though a dead 16 pheasant in the larder, or a dead sheep at a butcher's,
may excite feelings akin to anything but good living; and though they may
there be the excitive causes of poetical, nay, or moral reflexion;
yet, see them on the canvass, and the first and uppermost idea will be that
of ‘Food,’ and how, in the name of decency, they ever
came there. It will be vain to argue that gathered fruit is only nature
under a certain phase, and that a dead sheep or a dead pheasant is only a
dead animal like a dead ass—it will be pitiably vain and miserable
sophistry, since we know that the dead pheasant in a picture will always be
as food, while the same at he poulterer's will be but a dead
pheasant.

For we have not one only, but numerous general ideas annexed to every
object in nature. Thus one of the series may be that that object is matter,
one that it is individual matter, one that it is animal matter, one that it
is a bird, one that it is a pheasant, one that it is a dead pheasant, and
one that it is food. Now, our general ideas or notions are not evoked in
this order as each new object addresses the mind; but that general idea is
first elicited which accords with the first or principle destination
of the object: thus the first general idea of a cowry, to the Indian, is
that of money, not of a shell; and our first general idea of a dead pheasant
is that of food, whereas to a zoologist it might have a different effect:
but this is the exception. But it was said, that a dead pheasant in a
picture would always be as food, while the same at the poulterer's would be
but a dead pheasant: what then becomes of the first general idea? It seems
to be disposed of thus: at the first sight of the shop, the idea is that of
food, and next (if you are not hungry, and poets never are), the mind will
be attracted to the species of animal, and (unless hunger presses) you may
be led on to moralize like Sterne: but, amongst pictures, where there is
nothing else to excite the general ideas of food, this, whenever adverted
to, must over re-excite that idea; and hence it appears that these
esculent subjects might be poetical enough if exhibited all together,
i.e., they must be surrounded with eatables, like a
possibly-poetical-pheasant in a poulterer's shop.

Longer stress has been laid upon this subject, “Still Life,”
than would seem justified by its insignificance, but as this is a branch of
art which has never aspired to be ‘High Art,’ it contains
something definite in its character which makes it better worth the analysis
than might appear at first sight; but still, as a latitude has been taken in
the investigation which is ever unavoidable in the handling of such
mercurial matter as poetry (where one must spread out a broad definition to
catch it wherever it runs), and as this is ever 17 incomprehensible to such as are unaccustomed to abstract
thinking, from the difficulty of educing a rule amidst an infinite array of
exceptions, and of recognising a principle shrouded in the obscurity of
conflicting details; it appears expedient, before pursuing the question, to
reinforce the first broad elementary principles with what definite
modification they may have acquired in their progress to this point in the
argument, together with the additional data which may have resulted from
analytic reference to other correlative matter.

First then, as Fine Art delights in proportion to the delectating
interest of the objects it depicts, and, as subsequently stated, grieves or
distresses in proportion as the objects are grievous or distressing, we have
this resultant: “Fine Art excites in proportion to the excitor
influence of the object;” and then, that “fine art
excites either the sensory or the mental faculties, in a like proportion to
the excitor properties of the objects respectively.” Thus then we
have, definitely stated, the powers or capabilities of Fine Art, as
regulated and governed by the objects it selects, and the objects it selects
making its subject. Now the question in hand is, “what the nature of
that subject should be,” but the subject must be
according to what Fine Art proposes to effect; all then must depend upon
this proposition. For if you propose that Fine Art shall excite sensual
pleasure, then such objects as excite sensual pleasure should form the
subject of Fine Art; and those which excite sensual pleasure in the
highest degree, will form the highest subject—‘High
Art.’ Or if you propose that Fine Art shall excite a physical
energetic activity, by addressing the sensory organism, which is a phase of
the former proposition, (for what are popularly called sensual pleasures,
are only particular sensory excitements sought by a physical appetite, while
this sensory-organic activity is physically appetent also,) then the
subjects of art ought to be draw form such objects as excite a general
activity, such as field-sports, bull-fights, battles, executions, court
pageants, conflagrations, murders; and those which most intensely excite
this sensory-organic activity, by expressing most of physical human power or
suffering, such as battles, executions, regality, murder, would afford the
highest subject of Fine Art, and consequently these would be
“High Art.” But if you propose (with the writer) that
Fine Art shall regard the general happiness of man, but addressing
those attributes which are peculiarly human, by exciting the activity
of his rational and benevolent powers (and the writer would add, man's
religious aspirations, but omits it as sufficiently evolvable from the
proposition, and since some well-willing men cannot at present recognize man
as a religious animal), 18 then the subject of
Fine Art should be drawn from objects which address and excite the activity
of man's rational and benevolent powers, such as:—acts of
justice—of mercy—good government—order—acts of
intellect—men obviously speaking or thinking abstract thoughts, as
evinced by one speaking to another, and looking at, or indicating, a flower,
or a picture, or a star, or by looking on the wall while speaking—or,
if the scene be from a good play, or story, or another beneficent
work, then not only of men in abstract thought or meditation, but, it may
be, in simple conversation, or in passion—or a simple representation
of a person in a play or story, as of Jacques, Ferdinand, or Cordelia; or,
in real life, portraits of those who are honestly beautiful; or expressive
of innocence, happiness, benevolence, or intellectuality, but not of
gluttony, wantonness, anger, hatred, or malevolence, unless in some cases of
justifiable satire—of histrionic or historic
portraiture—landscape—natural phenomena—animals, not
indiscriminately—in some cases, grand or beautiful buildings,
even without figures—any scene on sea or land which induces
reflection—all subjects from such parts of history as are morally or
intellectually instructive or attractive—and therefore
pageants—battles—and even executions—all forms of
thought and poetry, however wild, if consistent with rational
benevolence—all scenes serious or comic, domestic or
historical—all religious subjects proposing good that will not shock
any reasonable number of reasonable men—all subjects that leave the
artist wiser and happier—and none which intrinsically act
otherwise—to sum all, every thing or incident in nature which excites,
or may be made to excite, the mind and the heart of man as a mentally
intelligent, not as a brute animal, is a subject for Fine Art, at all times,
in all places, and in all ages. But as all these subjects in nature affect
our hearts or our understanding in proportion to the heart and understanding
we have to apprehend and to love them, those will excite us most intensely
which we know most of and love most. But as we may learn to know them all
and to love them all, and what is dark to-day may be luminous to-morrow, and
things, dumb to-day, to-morrow grow voiceful, and the strange voice of
to-day be plain and reproach us to-morrow; who shall adventure to say that
this or that is the highest? And if it appear that all these subjects in
nature may affect us with equal intensity, and that the artist's
representations affect as the subjects affect, then it follows, with all
these subjects, Fine Art may affect us equally; but the subjects may all be
high; therefore, all Fine Art may be High Art.

19

The Seasons

The crocus, in the shrewd March morn,Thrusts up its saffron spear;And April dots the sombre thornWith gems, and loveliest cheer.

Then sleep the seasons, full of might;While slowly swells the pod,And rounds the peach, and in the nightThe mushroom bursts the sod.

The winter falls: the frozen rutIs bound with silver bars;The white drift heaps against the hut;And night is pierced with stars.

20

Dream Land

Where sunless rivers weepTheir waves into the deep,She sleeps a charmed sleep;Awake her not.Led by a single star,She came from very far,To seek where shadows areHer pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,She left the fields of corn,For twilight cold and lorn,And water-springs.Thro' sleep, as thro' a veil,She sees the sky look pale,And hears the nightingale,That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest,Shed over brow and breast;Her face is toward the west,The purple land.She cannot see the grainRipening on hill and plain;She cannot feel the rainUpon her hand.

Hand and Soul

Before any knowledge of painting was brought to Florence, there were
already painters in Lucca, and Pisa, and Arezzo, who feared God and loved
the art. The keen, grave workmen from Greece, whose trade it was to sell
their own works in Italy and teach Italians to imitate them, had already
found rivals of the soil with skill that could forestall their lessons and
cheapen their crucifixes and addolorate, more years than is supposed
before the art came at all into Florence. The pre-eminence to which Cimabue
was raised at once by his contemporaries, and which he still retains to a
wide extent even in the modern mind, is to be accounted for, partly by the
circumstances under which he arose, and partly by that extraordinary
purpose of fortune born with the lives of some few, and through which
it is not a little thing for any who went before, if they are even
remembered as the shadows of the coming of such an one, and the voices which
prepared his way in the wilderness. It is thus, almost exclusively, that the
painters of whom I speak are now known. They have left little, and but
little heed is taken of that which men hold to have been surpassed; it is
gone like time gone—a track of dust and dead leaves that merely led to
the fountain.

Nevertheless, of very late years, and in very rare instances, some signs
of a better understanding have become manifest. A case in point is that of
the tryptic and two cruciform pictures at Dresden, by Chiaro di Messer Bello
dell' Erma, to which the eloquent pamphlet of Dr. Aemmster has at length
succeeded in attracting the students. There is another, still more solemn
and beautiful work, now proved to be by the same hand, in the gallery at
Florence. It is the one to which my narrative will relate.

This Chiaro dell' Erma was a young man of very honorable family in
Arezzo; where, conceiving art almost, as it were, for himself, and loving it
deeply, he endeavored from early boyhood towards the imitation of any
objects offered in nature. The extreme longing after a visible embodiment of
his thoughts strengthened as his years increased, more even than his sinews
or the blood of his life; until 24 he would
feel faint in sunsets and at the sight of stately persons. When he had lived
nineteen years, he heard of the famous Giunta Pisano; and, feeling much of
admiration, with, perhaps, a little of that envy which youth always feels
until it has learned to measure success by time and opportunity, he
determined that he would seek out Giunta, and, if possible, become his
pupil.

Having arrived in Pisa, he clothed himself in humble apparel, being
unwilling that any other thing than the desire he had for knowledge should
be his plea with the great painter; and then, leaving his baggage at a house
of entertainment, he took his way along the street, asking whom he met for
the lodging of Giunta. It soon chanced that one of that city, conceiving him
to be a stranger and poor, took him into his house, and refreshed him;
afterwards directing him on his way.

When he was brought to speech of Giunta, he said merely that he was a
student, and that nothing in the world was so much at his heart as to become
that which he had heard told of him with whom he was speaking. He was
received with courtesy and consideration, and shewn into the study of the
famous artist. But the forms he saw there were lifeless and incomplete; and
a sudden exultation possessed him as he said within himself, “I am the
master of this man.” The blood came at first into his face, but the
next moment he was quite pale and fell to trembling. He was able, however,
to conceal his emotion; speaking very little to Giunta, but, when he took
his leave, thanking him respectfully.

After this, Chiaro's first resolve was, that he would work out thoroughly
some one of his thoughts, and let the world know him. But the lesson which
he had now learned, of how small a greatness might win fame, and how little
there was to strive against, served to make him torpid, and rendered his
exertions less continual. Also Pisa was a larger and more luxurious city
than Arezzo; and, when in his walks, he saw the great gardens laid out for
pleasure, and the beautiful women who passed to and fro, and heard the music
that was in the groves of the city at evening, he was taken with wonder that
he had never claimed his share of the inheritance of those years in which
his youth was cast. And women loved Chiaro; for, in despite of the burthen
of study, he was well-favoured and very manly in his walking; and, seeing
his face in front, there was a glory upon it, as upon the face of one who
feels a light round his hair.

So he put thought from him, and partook of his life. But, one night,
being in a certain company of ladies, a gentleman that was there with him
began to speak of the paintings of a youth named 25 Bonaventura, which he had seen in Lucca; adding that
Giunta Pisano might now look for a rival. When Chiaro heard this, the lamps
shook before him, and the music beat in his ears and made him giddy. He rose
up, alleging a sudden sickness, and went out of that house with his teeth
set.

He now took to work diligently; not returning to Arezzo, but remaining in
Pisa, that no day more might be lost; only living entirely to himself.
Sometimes, after nightfall, he would walk abroad in the most solitary places
he could find; hardly feeling the ground under him, because of the thoughts
of the day which held him in fever.

The lodging he had chosen was in a house that looked upon gardens fast by
the Church of San Rocco. During the offices, as he sat at work, he could
hear the music of the organ and the long murmur that the chanting left; and
if his window were open, sometimes, at those parts of the mass where there
is silence throughout the church, his ear caught faintly the single voice of
the priest. Beside the matters of his art and a very few books, almost the
only object to be noticed in Chiaro's room was a small consecrated image of
St. Mary Virgin wrought out of silver, before which stood always, in
summer-time, a glass containing a lily and a rose.

It was here, and at this time, that Chiaro painted the Dresden pictures;
as also, in all likelihood, the one—inferior in merit, but certainly
his—which is now at Munich. For the most part, he was calm and regular
in his manner of study; though often he would remain at work through the
whole of the day, not resting once so long as the light lasted; flushed, and
with the hair from his face. Or, at times, when he could not paint, he would
sit for hours in thought of all the greatness the world had known from of
old; until he was weak with yearning, like one who gazes upon a path of
stars.

He continued in this patient endeavour for about three years, at the end
of which his name was spoken throughout all Tuscany. As his fame waxed, he
began to be employed, besides easel-pictures, upon paintings in fresco: but
I believe that no traces remain to us of any of these latter. He is said to
have painted in the Duomo: and D'Agincourt mentions having seen some
portions of a fresco by him which originally had its place above the high
altar in the Church of the Certosa; but which, at the time he saw it, being
very dilapidated, had been hewn out of the wall, and was preserved in the
stores of the convent. Before the period of Dr. Aemmster's researches,
however, it had been entirely destroyed.

Chiaro was now famous. It was for the race of fame that he had 26 girded up his loins; and he had not paused until
fame was reached: yet now, in taking breath, he found that the weight was
still at his heart. The years of his labor had fallen from him, and his life
was still in its first painful desire.

With all that Chiaro had done during these three years, and even before,
with the studies of his early youth, there had always been a feeling of
worship and service. It was the peace-offering that he made to God and to
his own soul for the eager selfishness of his aim. There was earth, indeed,
upon the hem of his raiment; but this was of the heaven, heavenly. He
had seasons when he could endure to think of no other feature of his hope
than this: and sometimes, in the ecstacy of prayer, it had even seemed to
him to behold that day when his mistress—his mystical lady (now hardly
in her ninth year, but whose solemn smile at meeting had already lighted on
his soul like the dove of the Trinity)—even she, his own gracious and
holy Italian art—with her virginal bosom, and her unfathomable eyes,
and the thread of sunlight round her brows—should pass, through the
sun that never sets, into the circle of the shadow of the tree of life, and
be seen of God, and found good: and then it had seemed to him, that he, with
many who, since his coming, had joined the band of whom he was one (for, in
his dream, the body he had worn on earth had been dead an hundred years),
were permitted to gather round the blessed maiden, and to worship with her
through all ages and ages of ages, saying, Holy, holy, holy. This thing he
had seen with the eyes of his spirit; and in this thing had trusted,
believing that it would surely come to pass.

But now, (being at length led to enquire closely into himself,) even as,
in the pursuit of fame, the unrest abiding after attainment had proved to
him that he had misinterpreted the craving of his own spirit—so also,
now that he would willingly have fallen back on devotion, he became aware
that much of that reverence which he had mistaken for faith had been no more
than the worship of beauty. Therefore, after certain days passed in
perplexity, Chiaro said within himself, “My life and my will are yet
before me: I will take another aim to my life.”

From that moment Chiaro set a watch on his soul, and put his hand to no
other works but only to such as had for their end the presentment of some
moral greatness that should impress the beholder: and, in doing this, he did
not choose for his medium the action and passion of human life, but cold
symbolism and abstract impersonation. So the people ceased to throng about
his pictures as heretofore; and, when they were carried through town and
town to their destination, they were no longer delayed by the crowds 27 eager to gaze and admire: and no prayers or
offerings were brought to them on their path, as to his Madonnas, and his
Saints, and his Holy Children. Only the critical audience remained to him;
and these, in default of more worthy matter, would have turned their
scrutiny on a puppet or a mantle. Meanwhile, he had no more of fever upon
him; but was calm and pale each day in all that he did and in his goings in
and out. The works he produced at this time have perished—in all
likelihood, not unjustly. It is said (and we may easily believe it), that,
though more labored than his former pictures, they were cold and unemphatic;
bearing marked out upon them, as they must certainly have done, the measure
of that boundary to which they were made to conform.

And the weight was still close at Chiaro's heart: but he held in his
breath, never resting (for he was afraid), and would not know it.

Now it happened, within these days, that there fell a great feast in
Pisa, for holy matters: and each man left his occupation; and all the guilds
and companies of the city were got together for games and rejoicings. And
there were scarcely any that stayed in the houses, except ladies who lay or
sat along their balconies between open windows which let the breeze beat
through the rooms and over the spread tables from end to end. And the golden
cloths that their arms lay upon drew all eyes upward to see their beauty;
and the day was long; and every hour of the day was bright with the sun.

So Chiaro's model, when he awoke that morning on the hot pavement of the
Piazza Nunziata, and saw the hurry of people that passed him, got up and
went along with them; and Chiaro waited for him in vain.

For the whole of that morning, the music was in Chiaro's room from the
Church close at hand: and he could hear the sounds that the crowd made in
the streets; hushed only at long intervals while the processions for the
feast-day chanted in going under his windows. Also, more than once, there
was a high clamour from the meeting of factious persons: for the ladies of
both leagues were looking down; and he who encountered his enemy could not
choose but draw upon him. Chiaro waited a long time idle; and then knew that
his model was gone elsewhere. When at his work, he was blind and deaf to all
else; but he feared sloth: for then his stealthy thoughts would begin, as it
were, to beat round and round him, seeking a point for attack. He now rose,
therefore, and went to the window. It was within a short space of noon; and
underneath him a throng of people was coming out through the porch of San
Rocco.

28

The two greatest houses of the feud in Pisa had filled the church for
that mass. The first to leave had been the Gherghiotti; who, stopping on the
threshold, had fallen back in ranks along each side of the archway: so that
now, in passing outward, the Marotoli had to walk between two files of men
whom they hated, and whose fathers had hated theirs. All the chiefs were
there and their whole adherence; and each knew the name of each. Every man
of the Marotoli, as he came forth and saw his foes, laid back his hood and
gazed about him, to show the badge upon the close cap that held his hair.
And of the Gherghiotti there were some who tightened their girdles; and some
shrilled and threw up their wrists scornfully, as who flies a falcon; for
that was the crest of their house.

On the walls within the entry were a number of tall, narrow frescoes,
presenting a moral allegory of Peace, which Chiaro had painted that year for
the Church. The Gherghiotti stood with their backs to these frescoes: and
among them Golzo Ninuccio, the youngest noble of the faction, called by the
people of Golaghiotta, for his debased life. This youth had remained for
some while talking listlessly to his fellows, though with his sleepy sunken
eyes fixed on them who passed: but now, seeing that no man jostled another,
he drew the long silver shoe off his foot, and struck the dust out of it on
the cloak of him who was going by, asking him how far the tides rose at
Viderza. And he said so because it was three months since, at that place,
the Gherghiotti had beaten the Marotoli to the sands, and held them there
while the sea came in; whereby many had been drowned. And, when he had
spoken, at once the whole archway was dazzling with the light of confused
swords; and they who had left turned back; and they who were still behind
made haste to come forth: and there was so much blood cast up the walls on a
sudden, that it ran in long streams down Chiaro's paintings.

Chiaro turned himself from the window; for the light felt dry between his
lids, and he could not look. He sat down, and heard the noise of contention
driven out of the church-porch and a great way through the streets; and soon
there was a deep murmur that heaved and waxed from the other side of the
city, where those of both parties were gathering to join in the tumult.

Chiaro sat with his face in his open hands. Once again he had wished to
set his foot on a place that looked green and fertile; and once again it
seemed to him that the thin rank mask was about to spread away, and that
this time the chill of the water must leave leprosy in his flesh. The light
still swam in his head, and bewildered 29 him
at first; but when he knew his thoughts, they were these:—

“Fame failed me: faith failed me: and now this also,—the hope
that I nourished in this my generation of men,—shall pass from me, and
leave my feet and my hands groping. Yet, because of this, are my feet become
slow and my hands thin. I am as one who, through the whole night, holding
his way diligently, hath smitten the steel unto the flint, to lead some whom
he knew darkling; who hath kept his eyes always on the sparks that himself
made, lest they should fail; and who, towards dawn, turning to bid them that
he had guided God speed, sees the wet grass untrodden except of his own
feet. I am as the last hour of the day, whose chimes are a perfect number;
whom the next followeth not, nor light ensueth from him; but in the same
darkness is the old order begun afresh. Men say, ‘This is not God nor
man; he is not as we are, neither above us: let him sit beneath us, for we
are many.’ Where I write Peace, in that spot is the drawing of swords,
and there men's footprints are red. When I would sow, another harvest is
ripe. Nay, it is much worse with me than thus much. Am I not as a cloth
drawn before the light, that the looker may not be blinded; but which
sheweth thereby the grain of its own coarseness; so that the light seems
defiled, and men say, ‘We will not walk by it.’ Wherefore
through me they shall be doubly accursed, seeing that through me they reject
the light. May one be a devil and not know it?”

As Chiaro was in these thoughts, the fever encroached slowly on his
veins, till he could sit no longer, and would have risen; but suddenly he
found awe within him, and held his head bowed, without stirring. The warmth
of the air was not shaken; but there seemed a pulse in the light, and a
living freshness, like rain. The silence was a painful music, that made the
blood ache in his temples; and he lifted his face and his deep eyes.

A woman was present in his room, clad to the hands and feet with a green
and grey raiment, fashioned to that time. It seemed that the first thoughts
he had ever known were given him as at first from her eyes, and he knew her
hair to be the golden veil through which he beheld his dreams. Though her
hands were joined, her face was not lifted, but set forward; and though the
gaze was austere, yet her mouth was supreme in gentleness. And as he looked,
Chiaro's spirit appeared abashed of its own intimate presence, and his lips
shook with the thrill of tears; it seemed such a bitter while till the
spirit might be indeed alone.

She did not move closer towards him, but he felt her to be as much with
him as his breath. He was like one who, scaling a 30 great steepness, hears his own voice echoed in some
place much higher than he can see, and the name of which is not known to
him. As the woman stood, her speech was with Chiaro: not, as it were, from
her mouth or in his ears; but distinctly between them.

“I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee. See me, and
know me as I am. Thou sayest that fame has failed thee, and faith failed
thee; but because at least thou hast not laid thy life unto riches,
therefore, though thus late, I am suffered to come into thy knowledge. Fame
sufficed not, for that thou didst seek fame: seek thine own conscience (not
thy mind's conscience, but thine heart's), and all shall approve and
suffice. For Fame, in noble soils, is a fruit of the Spring: but not
therefore should it be said: ‘Lo! my garden that I planted is barren:
the crocus is here, but the lily is dead in the dry ground, and shall not
lift the earth that covers it: therefore I will fling my garden together,
and give it unto the builders.’ Take heed rather that thou trouble not
the wise secret earth; for in the mould that thou throwest up shall the
first tender growth lie to waste; which else had been made strong in its
season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its months, and the soil
be indeed, to thee, peevish and incapable, and though thou indeed gather all
thy harvest, and it suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness;
and others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy throat;—let
it be enough that these have found the feast good, and thanked the giver:
remembering that, when the winter is striven through, there is another year,
whose wind is meek, and whose sun fulfilleth all.”

While he heard, Chiaro went slowly on his knees. It was not to her that
spoke, for the speech seemed within him and his own. The air brooded in
sunshine, and though the turmoil was great outside, the air within was at
peace. But when he looked in her eyes, he wept. And she came to him, and
cast her hair over him, and, took her hands about his forehead, and spoke
again:

“Thou hadst said,” she continued, gently, “that faith
failed thee. This cannot be so. Either thou hadst it not, or thou hast it.
But who bade thee strike the point betwixt love and faith? Wouldst thou sift
the warm breeze from the sun that quickens it? Who bade thee turn upon God
and say: “Behold, my offering is of earth, and not worthy: thy fire
comes not upon it: therefore, though I slay not my brother whom thou
acceptest, I will depart before thou smite me.” Why shouldst thou rise
up and tell God He is not content? Had He, of His warrant, certified so to
thee? Be not nice to seek out division; but possess thy love in sufficiency:
assuredly this is faith, for the heart must believe first. What He hath set
in thine heart to do, that do thou; and even though thou do it 31 without thought of Him, it shall be well done: it is
this sacrifice that He asketh of thee, and His flame is upon it for a sign.
Think not of Him; but of His love and thy love. For God is no morbid
exactor: he hath no hand to bow beneath, nor a foot, that thou shouldst kiss
it.”

And Chiaro held silence, and wept into her hair which covered his face;
and the salt tears that he shed ran through her hair upon his lips; and he
tasted the bitterness of shame.

Then the fair woman, that was his soul, spoke again to him, saying:

“And for this thy last purpose, and for those unprofitable truths
of thy teaching,—thine heart hath already put them away, and it needs
not that I lay my bidding upon thee. How is it that thou, a man, wouldst say
coldly to the mind what God hath said to the heart warmly? Thy will was
honest and wholesome; but look well lest this also be folly,—to say,
‘I, in doing this, do strengthen God among men.’ When at any
time hath he cried unto thee, saying, ‘My son, lend me thy shoulder,
for I fall?’ Deemest thou that the men who enter God's temple in
malice, to the provoking of blood, and neither for his love nor for his
wrath will abate their purpose,—shall afterwards stand with thee in
the porch, midway between Him and themselves, to give ear unto thy thin
voice, which merely the fall of their visors can drown, and to see thy
hands, stretched feebly, tremble among their swords? Give thou to God no
more than he asketh of thee; but to man also, that which is man's. In all
that thou doest, work from thine own heart, simply; for his heart is as
thine, when thine is wise and humble; and he shall have understanding of
thee. One drop of rain is as another, and the sun's prism in all: and shalt
not thou be as he, whose lives are the breath of One? Only by making thyself
his equal can he learn to hold communion with thee, and at last own thee
above him. Not till thou lean over the water shalt thou see thine image
therein: stand erect, and it shall slope from thy feet and be lost. Know
that there is but this means whereby thou may'st serve God with
man:—Set thine hand and thy soul to serve man with God.”

And when she that spoke had said these words within Chiaro's spirit, she
left his side quietly, and stood up as he had first seen her; with her
fingers laid together, and her eyes steadfast, and with the breadth of her
long dress covering her feet on the floor. And, speaking again, she
said:

“Chiaro, servant of God, take now thine Art unto thee, and paint me
thus, as I am, to know me: weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time;
only with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet
jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always, and
perplex thee no more.”

32

And Chiaro did as she bade him. While he worked, his face grew solemn
with knowledge: and before the shadows had turned, his work was done. Having
finished, he lay back where he sat, and was asleep immediately: for the
growth of that strong sunset was heavy about him, and he felt weak and
haggard; like one just come out of a dusk, hollow country, bewildered with
echoes, where he had lost himself, and who has not slept for many days and
nights. And when she saw him lie back, the beautiful woman came to him, and
sat at his head, gazing, and quieted his sleep with her voice.

The tumult of the factions had endured all that day through all Pisa,
though Chiaro had not heard it: and the last service of that Feast was a
mass sung at midnight from the windows of all the churches for the many dead
who lay about the city, and who had to be buried before morning, because of
the extreme heats.

In the Spring of 1847 I was at Florence. Such as were there at the same
time with myself—those, at least, to whom Art is something,—will
certainly recollect how many rooms of the Pitti Gallery were closed through
that season, in order that some of the pictures they contained might be
examined, and repaired without the necessity of removal. The hall, the
staircases, and the vast central suite of apartments, were the only
accessible portions; and in these such paintings as they could admit from
the sealed penetralia were profanely huddled together, without
respect of dates, schools, or persons.

I fear that, through this interdict, I may have missed seeing many of the
best pictures. I do not mean only the most talked of: for these, as
they were restored, generally found their way somehow into the open rooms,
owing to the clamours raised by the students; and I remember how old
Ercoli's, the curator's, spectacles used to be mirrored in the reclaimed
surface, as he leaned mysteriously over these works with some of the
visitors, to scrutinize and elucidate.

One picture, that I saw that Spring, I shall not easily forget. It was
among those, I believe, brought from the other rooms, and had been hung,
obviously out of all chronology, immediately beneath that head by Raphael so
long known as the “Berrettino,” and now said to be the portrait
of Cecco Ciulli.

The picture I speak of is a small one, and represents merely the figure
of a woman, clad to the hands and feet with a green and grey raiment, chaste
and early in its fashion, but exceedingly simple. She is standing: her hands
are held together lightly, and her eyes set earnestly open.

The face and hands in this picture, though wrought with great delicacy,
have the appearance of being painted at once, in a single sitting: the
drapery is unfinished. As soon as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon me,
like water in shadow. I shall not attempt to describe it more than I have
already done; for the most absorbing wonder of it was its literality. You
knew that figure, when painted, had been seen; yet it was not a thing to be
seen of men. This language will appear ridiculous to such as have never
looked on the work; and it may be even to some among those who have. On
examining it closely, I perceived in one corner of the canvass the words
Manus Animam pinxit, and the date 1239.

I turned to my Catalogue, but that was useless, for the pictures were all
displaced. I then stepped up to the Cavaliere Ercoli, who was in the room at
the moment, and asked him regarding the 33
subject of authorship of the painting. He treated the matter, I thought,
somewhat slightingly, and said that he could show me the reference in the
Catalogue, which he had compiled. This, when found, was not of much value,
as it merely said, “Schizzo d'autore incerto,” adding the
inscription.{4} I could willingly have prolonged my inquiry, in the hope
that it might somehow lead to some result; but I had disturbed the curator
from certain yards of Guido, and he was not communicative. I went back
therefore, and stood before the picture till it grew dusk.

{4}I should here say, that in the catalogue for the year just over,
(owing, as in cases before mentioned, to the zeal and enthusiasm of Dr.
Aemmester) this, and several other pictures, have been more competently
entered. The work in question is now placed in the Sala Sessagona, a
room I did not see—under the number 161. It is described as
“Figura mistica di Chiaro dell' Erma,” and there is a brief
notice of the author appended.

The next day I was there again; but this time a circle of students was
round the spot, all copying the “Berrettino.” I contrived,
however, to find a place whence I could see my picture, and where I
seemed to be in nobody's way. For some minutes I remained undisturbed; and
then I heard, in an English voice: “Might I beg of you, sir, to stand
a little more to this side, as you interrupt my view.”

I felt vext, for, standing where he asked me, a glare struck on the
picture from the windows, and I could not see it. However, the request was
reasonably made, and from a countryman; so I complied, and turning away,
stood by his easel. I knew it was not worth while; yet I referred in some
way to the work underneath the one he was copying. He did not laugh, but he
smiled as we do in England: “Very odd, is it not?” said
he.

The other students near us were all continental; and seeing an Englishman
select an Englishman to speak with, conceived, I suppose, that he could
understand no language but his own. They had evidently been noticing the
interest which the little picture appeared to excite in me.

One of them, and Italian, said something to another who stood next to
him. He spoke with a Genoese accent, and I lost the sense in the villainous
dialect. “Che so?” replied the other, lifting his eyebrows
towards the figure; “roba mistica: 'st' Inglesi son matti sul
misticismo: somiglia alle nebbie di là. Li fa pensare alla patria,

“E intenerisce il coreLo dì ch' han detto ai dolci amici adio.”

“La notte, vuoi dire,” said a third.

There was a general laugh. My compatriot was evidently a novice in the
language, and did not take in what was said. I remained silent, being
amused.

“Et toi donc?” said he who had quoted Dante, turning to a
student, whose birthplace was unmistakable even had he been addressed in any
other language: “que dis-tu de ce genre-là?”

Reviews

The critic who should undertake to speak of all the poetry which issues
from the press of these present days, what is so called by courtesy as well
as that which may claim the title as of right, would impose on himself a
task demanding no little labor, and entailing no little disgust and
weariness. Nor is the trouble well repaid. More profit will not accrue to
him who studies, if the word can be used, fifty of a certain class of
versifiers, than to him who glances over one: and, while a successful effort
to warn such that poetry is not their proper sphere, and that they must seek
elsewhere for a vocation to work out, might embolden a philanthropist to
assume the position of scare-crow, and drive away the unclean birds from the
flowers and the green leaves; on the other hand, the small results which
appear to have hitherto attended such endeavors are calculated rather to
induce those who have yet made, to relinquish them than to lead others to
follow in the same track. It is truly a disheartening task. To the critic
himself no good, though some amusement occasionally, can be expected: to the
criticised, good but rarely, for he is seldom convinced, and annoyance and
rancour almost of course; and, even in those few cases where the voice
crying “in the wilderness” produces its effect, the one thistle
that abandons the attempt at bearing figs sees its neighbors still believing
in their success, and soon has its own place filled up. The sentence of
those who do not read is the best criticism on those who will not think.

It is acting on these considerations that we propose not to take count of
any works that do not either show a purpose achieved or give promise of a
worthy event; while of such we hope to overlook none.

We believe it may safely be assumed that at no previous period has the
public been more buzzed round by triviality and common-place; but we hold
firm, at the same time, that at none other has there been a greater or a
grander body of genius, or so honorable a display of well cultivated taste
and talent. Certainly the public do not seem to know this: certainly the
critics deny it, or rather speak as though they never contemplated that such
a position would be advanced: but, if the fact be so, it will make itself
known, and the poets of this day will assert themselves, and take their
places.

35

Of these it is our desire to speak truthfully, indeed, and without
compromise, but always as bearing in mind that the inventor is more than the
commentator, and the book more than the notes; and that, if it is we who
speak, we do so not for ourselves, nor as of ourselves.

The work of Arthur Hugh Clough now before us, (we feel warranted in the
dropping of the Mr. even at his first work,) unites the most enduring
forms of nature, and the most unsophisticated conditions of life and
character, with the technicalities of speech, of manners, and of persons of
an Oxford reading party in the long vacation. His hero is

and his heroine is no heroine, but a woman, “Elspie,
the quiet, the brave.”

The metre he has chosen, the hexametral, harmonises with the spirit of
primitive simplicity in which the poem is conceived; is itself a background,
as much as are “Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, and
Ardnamurchan;” and gives a new individuality to the passages of
familiar narrative and every day conversation. It has an intrinsic
appropriateness; although, at first thought of the subject, this will,
perhaps, be scarcely admitted of so old and so stately a rhythmical
form.

As regards execution, however, there may be noted, in qualification of
much pliancy and vigour, a certain air of experiment in occasional passages,
and a license in versification, which more than warrants a warning “to
expect every kind of irregularity in these modern hexameters.” The
following lines defy all efforts at reading in dactyls or spondees, and
require an almost complete transposition of accent.

“There was a point which I forgot, which our gallant
Highland homes have;”—“While the little drunken Piper came across to shake hands
with Lindsay:”—“Something of the world, of men and women: you will not
refuse me.”

In the first of these lines, the omission of the former
“which,” would remove all objection; and there are others
where a final syllable appears clearly deficient; as thus:—

“Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead
between” [them]:—“Always welcome the stranger: I may say, delighted to see
[such] Fine young men:”—“Nay, never talk: listen now. What I say you can't
apprehend” [yet]:—“Laid her hand on her lap. Philip took it. She did not
resist” [him]:—

Yet the following would be scarcely improved by greater exactness:

“Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from
God;”

Nor, perhaps, ought this to be made correct:

36“Close as the bodies and intertwining limbs of athletic
wrestlers.”

The aspect of fact pervading “the Bothie of
Toper-na-fuosich,”—(in English, “the hut of the bearded
well,” a somewhat singular title, to say the least,) is so strong and
complete as to render necessary the few words of dedication, where, in
inscribing the poem, (or, as the author terms it, “trifle,”) to
his “long-vacation pupils,” he expresses a hope, that they
“will not be displeased if, in a fiction, purely fiction, they are
here and there reminded of times enjoyed together.”

As the story opens, the Oxford party are about to proceed to dinner at
“the place of the Clansmen's meeting.” Their characters,
discriminated with the nicest taste, and perfectly worked out, are thus
introduced:

“Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in
dressing.Hope was the first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, his
Honor;For the postman made out he was a son to the Earl of Ilay,(As, indeed, he was to the younger brother, the Colonel);Treated him therefore with special respect, doffed bonnet, and
everCalled him his Honor: his Honor he therefore was at the
cottage;Always his Honor at least, sometimes the Viscount of
Ilay.

“Hope was the first, his Honor; and, next to his Honor, the
Tutor.Still more plain the tutor, the grave man nicknamed Adam,White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut
waistcoat,Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling
beneath it;Skilful in ethics and logic, in Pindar and poets
unrivalled;Shady in Latin, said Lindsay, but topping in plays
and Aldrich.

“Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat of a
lady,Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving
Lindsay,Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician:This was his title from Adam, because of the words he
invented,Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the
party.

“Hewson and Hobbes were down at the matutine
bathing; of courseArthur Audley, the bather par excellence glory of
headers:Arthur they called him for love and for euphony: so were they
bathingThere where in mornings was custom, where, over a ledge of
granite,Into a granite bason descended the amber torrent.There were they bathing and dressing: it was but a step from the
cottage,Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead between.Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam; on them followed
Arthur.

“Airlie descended the last, splendescent as god of
Olympus.When for ten minutes already the fourwheel had stood at the
gateway;He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian
chamber.”—pp. 5, 6.

A peculiar point of style in this poem, and one which gives a certain
classic character to some of its more familiar aspects, is the frequent
recurrence of the same line, and the repeated definition of a personage
37 by the same attributes. Thus, Lindsay is
“the Piper, the Dialectician,” Arthur Audley “the glory of
headers,” and the tutor “the grave man nicknamed Adam,”
from beginning to end; and so also of the others.

Omitting the after-dinner speeches, with their “Long constructions
strange and plusquam-Thucydidean,” that only of “Sir Hector, the
Chief and the Chairman;” in honor of the Oxonians, than which nothing
could be more unpoetically truthful, is preserved, with the acknowledgment,
ending in a sarcasm at the game laws, by Hewson, who, as he is leaving the
room, is accosted by “a thin man, clad as the Saxon:”

“‘Young man, if ye pass thro' the Braes
o'Lochaber,See by the Loch-side ye come to the Bothie of
Toper-na-fuosich.’”—p. 9.

Throughout this scene, as through the whole book, no opportunity is
overlooked for giving individuality to the persons introduced: Sir Hector,
of whom we lose sight henceforward, the attaché, the Guards-man, are
not mere names, but characters: it is not enough to say that two tables were
set apart “for keeper and gillie and peasant:” there is
something to be added yet; and with others assembled around them were
“Pipers five or six; among them the young one, the
drunkard.”

The morrow's conversation of the reading party turns on “noble
ladies and rustic girls, their partners.” And here speaks out Hewson
the chartist:

“‘Never (of course you will laugh, but of course all
the same I shall say it,)Never, believe me, revealed itself to me the sexual glory,Till, in some village fields, in holidays now getting
stupid,One day sauntering long and listless, as Tennyson has it,Long and listless strolling, ungainly in hobbydihoyhood,Chanced it my eye fell aside on a capless bonnetless
maiden,Bending with three-pronged fork in a garden uprooting
potatoes.Was it the air? who can say? or herself? or the charm of the
labor?But a new thing was in me, and longing delicious possessed
me,Longing to take her and lift her, and put her away from her
slaving.Was it to clasp her in lifting, or was it to lift her by
clasping,Was it embracing or aiding was most in my mind? Hard
question.But a new thing was in me: I too was a youth among
maidens.Was it the air? who can say? But, in part, 'twas the charm of the
labor.’”

And he proceeds in a rapture to talk on the beauty of household
service.

Hereat Arthur remarks: “‘Is not all this just the same that
one hears at common room breakfasts, Or perhaps Trinity-wines, about Gothic
buildings and beauty?’”—p. 13.

38

The character of Hobbes, called into energy by this observation, is
perfectly developed in the lines succeeding:

“And with a start from the sofa came Hobbes; with a cry
from the sofa,There where he lay, the great Hobbes, contemplative, corpulent,
witty;Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrase and
fancy;Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals
playing,Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the
tropics;Studious; careless of dress; inobservant; by smooth
persuasionsLately decoyed into kilt on example of Hope and the Piper,Hope an Antinous mere, Hyperion of calves the Piper.....“‘Ah! could they only be taught,’ he resumed,
‘by a Pugin of womenHow even churning and washing, the dairy, the scullery
duties,Wait but a touch to redeem and convert them to charms and
attractions;Scrubbing requires for true grace but frank and artistical
handling,And the removal of slops to be ornamentally
treated!”—pp. 13, 14.

Here, in the tutor's answer to Hewson, we come on the moral of the poem,
a moral to be pursued through commonplace lowliness of station and through
high rank, into the habit of life which would be, in the one, not
petty,—in the other, not overweening,—in any, calm and
dignified.

“‘You are a boy; when you grow to a man, you'll find
things alter.You will learn to seek the good, to scorn the attractive,Scorn all mere cosmetics, as now of rank and fashion,Delicate hands, and wealth, so then of poverty also,Poverty truly attractive, more truly, I bear you witness.Good, wherever found, you will choose, be it humble or
stately,Happy if only you find, and, finding, do not lose
it.’”—p. 14.

When the discussion is ended, the party propose to separate, some
proceeding on their tour; and Philip Hewson will be of these.

“‘Finally, too,’ from the kilt and the sofa
said Hobbes in conclusion,‘Finally Philip must hunt for that home of the probable
poacher,Hid in the Braes of Lochaber, the Bothie of
what-did-he-call-it.Hopeless of you and of us, of gillies and marquises
hopeless,Weary of ethic and logic, of rhetoric yet more weary,There shall he, smit by the charm of a lovely
potatoe-uprooter,Study the question of sex in the Bothie of
what-did-he-call-it.”’—p. 18.

The action here becomes divided; and, omitting points of detail, we must
confine ourselves to tracing the development of the idea in which the
subject of the poem consists.

Philip and his companions, losing their road, are received at a farm,
where they stay for three days: and this experience of himself begins. He
comes prepared; and, if he seems to love the “golden-haired
Katie,” it is less that she is “the youngest and comeliest
daughter” than because of her position, and that in that she realises
his preconceived wishes. For three days he is with her and about her; and he
39 remains when his friends leave the
farm-house. But his love is no more than the consequence of his principles;
it is his own will unconsidered and but half understood. And a letter to
Adam tells how it had an end:

“‘I was walking along some two miles from the
cottage,Full of my dreamings. A girl went by in a party with
others:She had a cloak on,—was stepping on quickly, for rain was
beginning;But, as she passed, from the hood I saw her eyes glance at
me:—So quick a glance, so regardless I, that, altho' I felt
it,You couldn't properly say our eyes met; she cast it, and left
it.It was three minutes, perhaps, ere I knew what it was. I had seen
herSomewhere before, I am sure; but that wasn't it,—not its
import.No; it had seemed to regard me with simple superior
insight,Quietly saying to herself: ‘Yes, there he is still in his
fancy......Doesn't yet see we have here just the things he is used to
elsewhere,And that the things he likes here, elsewhere he wouldn't have
looked at;People here, too, are people, and not as fairy-land
creatures.He is in a trance, and possessed,—I wonder how long to
continue.It is a shame and pity,—and no good likely to
follow.’—Something like this; but, indeed, I cannot the least define
it.Only, three hours thence, I was off and away in the
moor-land,Hiding myself from myself, if I could, the arrow within
me.’”—p. 29.

Philip Hewson has been going on

“Even as cloud passing subtly unseen from mountain to
mountain,Leaving the crest of Benmore to be palpable next on
Benvohrlich,Or like to hawk of the hill, which ranges and soars in its
hunting,Seen and unseen by turns.”...... And these are his
words in the mountains:......

“‘Surely the force that here sweeps me along in its
violent impulse,Surely my strength shall be in her, my help and protection about her,Surely in inner-sweet gladness and vigor of joy shall sustain her;Till, the brief winter o'erpast, her own true sap in the springtideRise, and the tree I have bared be verdurous e'en as aforetime:Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet, ever and ever,‘Would I were dead,’ I keep saying, ‘that so I
could go and uphold her.’”—pp. 26, 27.

And, meanwhile, Katie, among the others, is dancing and smiling still on
some one who is to her all that Philip had ever been.

When Hewson writes next, his experience has reached its second stage. He
is at Balloch, with the aunt and the cousin of his friend Hope: and the lady
Maria has made his beliefs begin to fail and totter, and he feels for
something to hold firmly. He seems to think, at one moment, that the mere
knowledge of the existence of such an one ought to compensate for lives of
drudgery hemmed in with want; then he turns round on himself with,
“How shall that be?” And, at length, he appeases his questions,
saying that it must and should be so, if it is.

After this, come scraps of letters, crossed and recrossed, from the 40 Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich. In his travelling
towards home, a horse cast a shoe, and the were directed to David Mackaye.
Hewson is still in the clachan hard by when he urges his friend to come to
him: and he comes.

“There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the
loch to the ocean;There, with a runnel beside, and pine-trees twain before
it,There, with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and
steamers,Dwelling of David Mackaye and his daughters, Elspie and
Bella,Sends up a column of smoke the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich.....

“So on the road they walk, by the shore of the salt
sea-water,Silent a youth and maid, the elders twain
conversing.”—pp. 36, 37.

“Ten more days, with Adam, did Philip abide at the
changehouse;Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and
daughter.Ten more nights; and, night by night, more distant away
werePhilip and she; every night less heedful, by habit, the
father.”—pp. 38, 39.

From this point, we must give ourselves up to quotation; and the narrow
space remaining to us is our only apology to the reader for making any
omission whatever in these extracts.

“For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not
her blushes,Elspie confessed, at the sports, long ago, with her father, she
saw him,When at the door the old man had told him the name of the
Bothie;There, after that, at the dance; yet again at the dance in
Rannoch;And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather PhilipBuried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was
bursting.Silent, confused; yet by pity she conquered here fear, and
continued:‘Katie is good and not silly: be comforted, Sir, about
her;Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not, like many,Carrying off, and at once, for fear of being seen, in the
bosomLocking up as in a cupboard, the pleasure that any man gives
them,Keeping it out of sight as a prize they need be ashamed
of:That is the way, I think, Sir, in England more than in
Scotland.No; she lives and takes pleasure in all, as in beautiful
weather;Sorry to lose it; but just as we would be to lose fine weather.....There were at least five or six,—not there; no, that I
don't say,But in the country about,—you might just as well have been
courting.That was what gave me much pain; and (you won't remember that
tho'),Three days after, I met you, beside my Uncle's walking;And I was wondering much, and hoped you wouldn't notice;So, as I passed, I couldn't help looking. You didn't know
me;But I was glad when I heard, next day, you were gone to the
teacher.’

“And, uplifting his face at last, with eyes dilated,Large as great stars in mist, and dim with dabbled lashes.Philip, with new tears starting,

‘You think I do not remember,’Said, ‘suppose that I did not observe. Ah me! shall I tell
you?Elspie, it was your look that sent me away from Rannoch.’....And he continued more firmly, altho' with stronger
emotion.‘Elspie, why should I speak it? You cannot believe it, and
should not.Why should I say that I love, which I all but said to
another?41Yet, should I dare, should I say, Oh Elspie you only I love,
you,First and sole in my life that has been, and surely that shall
be;Could, oh could, you believe it, oh Elspie, believe it, and spurn
not?Is it possible,—possible, Elspie?’

‘Well,’ she answered,Quietly, after her fashion, still knitting; ‘Well, I think
of it.Yes, I don't know, Mr. Philip; but only it feels to me
strangely,—Like to the high new bridge they used to build at, below
there,Over the burn and glen, on the road. You won't understand me.....Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and
bridges;Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down,
andDropping a great key-stone in the middle.’....

“But while she was speaking,—So it happened,—a moment she paused from her work, and,
pondering,Laid her hand on her lap. Philip took it, she did not
resist.So he retained her fingers, the knitting being stopped. But
emotionCame all over her more and more, from his hand, from her heart,
andMost from the sweet idea and image her brain was renewing.So he retained her hand, and, his tears down-dropping on
it,Trembling a long time, kissed it at last: and she ended.And, as she ended, up rose he, saying: ‘What have I heard?
Oh!What have I done, that such words should be said to me? Oh! I see
it,See the great key-stone coming down from the heaven of
heavens.’And he fell at her feet, and buried his face in her apron.“But, as, under the moon and stars, they went to the
cottage,Elspie sighed and said: ‘Be patient, dear Mr.
Philip;Do not do anything hasty. It is all so soon, so sudden.Do not say anything yet to any one.’

‘Elspie,’ he answered,“Does not my friend go on Friday? I then shall see nothing
of you:Do not I myself go on Monday? ‘But oh!’ he said,
‘Elspie,Do as I bid you, my child; do not go on calling me
Mr.Might I not just as well be calling you Miss
Elspie?Call me, this heavenly night, for once, for the first time,
Philip.’“‘Philip,’ she said, and laughed, and said she
could not say it.‘Philip,’ she said. He turned, and kissed the sweet
lips as they said it.“But, on the morrow, Elspie kept out of the way of
Philip;And, at the evening seat, when he took her hand by the
alders,Drew it back, saying, almost peevishly:

“‘No, Mr. Philip;I was quite right last night: it is too soon, too sudden,What I told you before was foolish, perhaps,—was
hasty.When I think it over, I am shocked and terrified at
it.’”....“Ere she had spoken two words, had Philip released her
fingers;As she went on, he recoiled, fell back, and shook, and
shivered.There he stood, looking pale and ghastly; when she had
ended,Answering in a hollow voice:

42“But a revulsion passed thro' the brain and bosom of
Elspie;And she got up from her seat on the rock, putting by her
knitting,Went to him where he stood, and answered:

“‘No, Mr. Philip:No; you are good, Mr. Philip, and gentle; and I am the foolish:No, Mr. Philip; forgive me.’

“She stepped right to him, and boldlyTook up his hand, and placed it in her's, he daring no
movement;Took up the cold hanging hand, up-forcing the heavy elbow.‘I am afraid,’ she said; ‘but I will;’
and kissed the fingers.And he fell on his knees, and kissed her own past counting......“As he was kissing her fingers, and knelt on the ground
before her,Yielding, backward she sank to her seat, and, of what she was
doingIgnorant, bewildered, in sweet multitudinous vague
emotion,Stooping, knowing not what, put her lips to the curl on his
forehead.And Philip, raising himself, gently, for the first time, round
herPassing his arms, close, close, enfolded her close to his
bosom.“As they went home by the moon, ‘Forgive me,
Philip,’ she whispered:‘I have so many things to talk of all of a sudden,I who have never once thought a thing in my ignorant
Highlands.’”—pp. 39-44.

We may spare criticism here, for what reader will not have felt such
poetry? There is something in this of the very tenderness of tenderness;
this is true delicacy, fearless and unembarrassed. Here it seems almost
captious to object: perhaps, indeed, it is rather personal whim than
legitimate criticism which makes us take some exception at “the curl
on his forehead;” yet somehow there seems a hint in it of the pet
curate.

Elspie's doubts now return upon her with increased force; and it is not
till after many conversations with the “teacher” that she allows
her resolve to be fixed. So, at last,

“There, upon Saturday eve, in the gorgeous bright
October,Under that alders knitting, gave Elspie her troth to
Philip.”

And, after their talk, she feels strong again, and fit to be his.—Then
they rise.

“‘But we must go, Mr. Philip.’

“‘I shall not go at all,’ saidHe, ‘If you call me Mr. Thank Heaven! that's well
over!’“‘No, but it's not,’ she said; ‘it is not
over, nor will be.Was it not, then,’ she asked, ‘the name I called you
first by?No, Mr. Philip, no. You have kissed me enough for two
nights.No.—Come, Philip, come, or I'll go myself without
you.’“‘You never call me Philip,’ he answered,
‘until I kiss you.’”—pp. 47, 48.

David Mackaye gives his consent; but first Hewson must return to College,
and study for a year.

His views have not been stationary. To his old scorn for the idle of
43 the earth had succeeded the surprise that
overtook him at Balloch: and he would now hold to his creed, yet not as
rejecting his experience. Some, he says, were made for use; others for
ornament; but let these be so made, of a truth, and not such as find
themselves merely thrust into exemption from labor. Let each know his place,
and take it, “For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant
for.” And of his friend urging Providence he can only, while answering
that doubtless he must be in the right, ask where the limit comes between
circumstance and Providence, and can but wish for a great cause, and the
trumpet that should call him to God's battle, whereas he sees

“Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,Backed by a solemn appeal, ‘For God's sake, do not stir
there.’”And the year is now out.“Philip returned to his books, but returned to his
Highlands after....There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October,When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are
faded,And, amid russet of heather and fern, green trees are
bonnie,There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were
garnered,David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling
Elspie;Elspie, the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip, the poet.....So won Philip his bride. They are married, and gone to New
Zealand.Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books and two or three
pictures,Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the sphere to New
Zealand.There he hewed and dug; subdued the earth and his
spirit.”—pp. 52-55.

Among the prominent attributes of this poem is its completeness. The
elaboration, not only of character and of mental discipline, but of incident
also, is unbroken. The absences of all mention of Elspie in the opening
scene and again at the dance at Rannoch may at first seem to be a failure in
this respect; but second thoughts will show it to be far otherwise: for, in
the former case, her presence would not have had any significance for
Hewson, and, in the latter, would have been overlooked by him save so far as
might warrant a future vague recollection, pre-occupied as his eyes and
thoughts were by another. There is one condition still under which we have
as yet had little opportunity of displaying this quality; but it will be
found to be as fully carried out in the descriptions of nature. In the first
of our extracts the worlds are few, but stand for many.

“Meäly glen, the heart of Lochiel's fair
forest,Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingleGrandly with rowan and ash;—in Mar you have no
ashes;There the pine is alone or relieved by birch and
alder.”—p. 22.

In the next mere sound and the names go far towards the entire effect;
but not so far as to induce any negligence in essential details:

“As, at return of tide, the total weight of ocean,Drawn by moon and sun from Labrador and Greenland,44Sets in amain in the open space betwixt Mull and Scarfa,Heaving, swelling, spreading, the might of the mighty
Atlantic;There into cranny and slit of the rocky cavernous bottomSettles down; and with dimples huge the smooth sea-surfaceEddies, coils, and whirls, and dangerous
Corryvreckan.”—p. 52.

Two more passages, and they must suffice as examples. Here the isolation
is perfect; but it is the isolation, not of the place and the actors only;
it is, as it were, almost our own in an equal degree;

“Ourselves too seemingNot as spectators, accepted into it, immingled, as trulyPart of it as are the kine of the field lying there by the
birches.”“There, across the great rocky wharves a wooden bridge
goes,Carrying a path to the forest; below,—three hundred yards,
say,—Lower in level some twenty-five feet, thro' flats of
shingle,Stepping-stones and a cart-track cross in the open valley.But, in the interval here, the boiling pent-up waterFrees itself by a final descent, attaining a basonTen feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and furyOccupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;Beautiful there for the color derived from green rocks
under;Beautiful most of all where beads of foam uprisingMingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the
stillness.Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendent
birch-boughs,Here it lies, unthought of above at the bridge and
pathway,Still more concealed from below by wood and rocky
projection.You are shut in, left alone with yourself and perfection of
water,Hid on all sides, left alone with yourself and the goddess of
bathing.”—

“So they bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and
forest;Far amid blackest pines to the waterfall they shadow,Far up the long long glen to the loch, and the loch beyond
itDeep under huge red cliffs, a secret.”

In many of the images of this poem, as also in the volume
“Ambarvalia,” the joint production of Clough and Thomas
Burbidge, there is a peculiar moderness, a reference distinctly to the means
and habits of society in these days, a recognition of every-day fact, and a
willingness to believe it as capable of poetry as that which, but for having
once been fact, would not now be tradition. There is a certain special
character in passages like the following, the familiarity of the matter
blending with the remoteness of the form of metre, such as should not be
overlooked in attempting to estimate the author's mind and views of art:

“Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening
parties,....Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon work,....As mere gratuitous trifling in presence of business and
dutyAs does the turning aside of the tourist to look at a
landscapeSeem in the steamer or coach to the merchant in haste for the
city.”—p. 12.

“I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one who,
dreaming,45Hears thro' his dream the name of his home shouted
out,—hears and hears not,Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in
distance,—Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice,
andSense of [present] claim and reality present; relapses,Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while
forward,Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not
whither.”—p.38.

Indeed, the general adaptation of the style to the immediate matter, the
alternation of the poetic and the familiar, with a certain mixture even of
classical phrase and allusion, is highly appropriate, and may almost be
termed constant, except in occasional instances where more poetry, and
especially more conception and working out of images, is introduced than
squares with a strict observance of nature. Thus the lines quoted where
Elspie applies to herself the incident of “the high new bridge”
and “the great key-stone in the middle” are succeeded by others
(omitted in our extract) where the idea is followed into its details; and
there is another passage in which, through no less than seventeen lines, she
compares herself to an inland stream disturbed and hurried on by the
mingling with it of the sea's tide. Thus also one of the most elaborate
descriptions in the poem,—an episode in itself of the extremest beauty
and finish, but, as we think, clearly misplaced,—is a picture of the
dawn over a great city, introduced into a letter of Philip's, and that, too,
simply as an image of his own mental condition. There are but few poets for
whom it would be superfluous to reflect whether pieces of such-like mere
poetry might not more properly form part of the descriptive groundwork, and
be altogether banished from discourse and conversation, where the greater
amount of their intrinsic care and excellence becomes, by its position, a
proportionally increasing load of disregard for truthfulness.

For a specimen of a peculiarly noble spirit which pervades the whole
work, we would refer the reader to the character of Arthur Audley,
unnecessary to the story, but most important to the sentiment; for a
comprehensive instance of minute feeling for individuality, to the narrative
of Lindsay and the corrections of Arthur on returning from their tour.

“He to the great might have been upsoaring, sublime
and ideal;He to the merest it was restricting, diminishing,
dwarfing;”

For pleasant ingenuity, involving, too, a point of character, to the
final letter of Hobbes to Philip, wherein, in a manner made up of playful
subtlety and real poetical feeling, he proves how “this Rachel and
Leah is marriage.”

“The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich” will not, it is to be
feared, be extensively read; its length combined with the metre in which it
is written, or indeed a first hasty glance at the contents, does not allure
the 46 majority even of poetical readers; but
it will not be left or forgotten by such as fairly enter upon it. This is a
poem essentially thought and studied, if not while in the act of writing, at
least as the result of a condition of mind; and the author owes it to the
appreciations of all into whose hands it shall come, and who are willing to
judge for themselves, to call it, should a second edition appear, by its
true name;—not a trifle, but a work.

That public attention should have been so little engaged by this poem is
a fact in one respect somewhat remarkable, as contrasting with the notice
which the “Ambarvalia” has received. Nevertheless, independently
of the greater importance of “the Bothie” in length and
development, it must, we think, be admitted to be written on sounder and
more matured principles of taste,—the style being sufficiently
characterized and distinctive without special prominence, whereas not a few
of the poems in the other volume are examples rather of style than of
thought, and might be held in recollection on account of the former quality
alone.

Her First Season

He gazed her over, from her eyebrows downEven to her feet: he gazed so with the goodUndoubting faith of fools, much as who shouldAccost God for a comrade. In the brownOf all her curls he seemed to think the townWould make an acquisition; but her hoodWas not the newest fashion, and his broodOf lady-friends might scarce approve her gown.If I did smile, 'twas faintly; for my cheeksBurned, thinking she'd be shown up to be sold,And cried about, in the thick jostling runOf the loud world, till all the weary weeksShould bring her back to herself and to the oldFamiliar face of nature and the sun.

47

A Sketch From Nature

The air blows pure, for twenty miles,Over this vast countrié:Over hill and wood and vale, it goeth,Over steeple, and stack, and tree:And there's not a bird on the wind but knowethHow sweet these meadows be.

The swallows are flying beside the wood,And the corbies are hoarsely crying;And the sun at the end of the earth hath stood,And, thorough the hedge and over the road,On the grassy slope is lying:And the sheep are taking their supper-foodWhile yet the rays are dying.

Sleepy shadows are filling the furrows,And giant-long shadows the trees are making;And velvet soft are the woodland tufts,And misty-gray the low-down crofts;But the aspens there have gold-green tops,And the gold-green tops are shaking:The spires are white in the sun's last light;—And yet a moment ere he drops,Gazes the sun on the golden slopes.

Two sheep, afar from fold,Are on the hill-side straying,With backs all silver, breasts all gold:The merle is something saying,Something very very sweet:—‘The day—the day—the day is done:’There answereth a single bleat—The air is cold, the sky is dimming,And clouds are long like fishes swimming.

Sydenham Wood, 1849.

48

An End

Love, strong as death, is dead.Come, let us make his bedAmong the dying flowers:A green turf at his head;And a stone at his feet,Whereon we may sitIn the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the spring,And died before the harvesting.On the last warm summer dayHe left us;—he would not stayFor autumn twilight cold and greySit we by his grave and singHe is gone away.

To few chords, and sad, and low,Sing we so.Be our eyes fixed on the grass,Shadow-veiled, as the years pass,While we think of all that wasIn the long ago.

Published Monthly, price 1s.

This Periodical will consist of original Poems, Stories to develope
thought and principle, Essays concerning Art and other subjects, and
analytic Reviews of current Literature—particularly of Poetry. Each
number will also contain an Etching; the subject to be taken from the
opening article of the month.

An attempt will be made, both intrinsically and by review, to claim for
Poetry that place to which its present development in the literature of this
country so emphatically entitles it.

The endeavour held in view throughout the writings on Art will be to
encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity of nature; and
also to direct attention, as an auxiliary medium, to the comparatively few
works which Art has yet produced in this spirit. It need scarcely be added
that the chief object of the etched designs will be to illustrate this aim
practically, as far as the method of execution will permit; in which purpose
they will be produced with the utmost care and completeness.

No. 2. (Price One Shilling.) FEBRUARY, 1850.

With an Etching by JAMES COLLINSON.

The Germ:

Thoughts towards Nature
In Poetry, Literature, and Art.

When whoso merely hath a little thoughtWill plainly think the thought which is in him,—Not imaging another's bright or dim,Not mangling with new words what others taught;When whoso speaks, from having either soughtOr only found,—will speak, not just to skimA shallow surface with words made and trim,But in that very speech the matter brought:Be not too keen to cry—“So this is all!—A thing I might myself have thought as well,But would not say it, for it was not worth!”Ask: “Is this truth?” For is it still to tellThat, be the theme a point or the whole earth,Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

To Correspondents.

All persons from whom Communications have been received, and who have not
been otherwise replied to, are requested to accept the Editor's
acknowledgments.

[Illustration: Ex ore infantiam et lartentium pertecizli laudem.]

49

The Child Jesus

“O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any
sorrow like to my sorrow.”—

Lamentations i.12.

I. The Agony in the Garden

Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth,And his wife Mary had an only child,Jesus: One holy from his mother's womb.Both parents loved him: Mary's heart aloneBeat with his blood, and, by her love and his,She knew that God was with her, and she stroveMeekly to do the work appointed her;To cherish him with undivided careWho deigned to call her mother, and who lovedFrom her the name of son. And Mary gaveHer heart to him, and feared not; yet she seemedTo hold as sacred that he said or did;And, unlike other women, never spakeHis words of innocence again; but allWere humbly treasured in her memoryWith the first secret of his birth. So strongGrew her affection, as the child increasedIn wisdom and in stature with his years,That many mothers wondered, saying: “TheseOur little ones claim in our hearts a placeThe next to God; but Mary's tendernessGrows almost into reverence for her child.Is he not of herself? I' the temple whenKneeling to pray, on him she bends her eyes,As though God only heard her prayer through him.Is he to be a prophet? Nay, we knowThat out of Galilee no prophet comes.”

But all their children made the boy their friend.

Three cottages that overlooked the seaStood side by side eastward of Nazareth.Behind them rose a sheltering range of cliffs,Purple and yellow, verdure-spotted, red,Layer upon layer built up against the sky.50In front a row of sloping meadows lay,Parted by narrow streams, that rose above,Leaped from the rocks, and cut the sands belowInto deep channels widening to the sea.

Within the humblest of these three abodesDwelt Joseph, his wife Mary, and their child.A honeysuckle and a moss-rose grew,With many blossoms, on their cottage front;And o'er the gable warmed by the SouthA sunny grape vine broadened shady leavesWhich gave its tendrils shelter, as they hungTrembling upon the bloom of purple fruit.And, like the wreathed shadows and deep glowsWhich the sun spreads from some old orielUpon the marble Altar and the goldOf God's own Tabernacle, where he dwellsFor ever, so the blossoms and the vine,On Jesus' home climbing above the roof,Traced intricate their windings all aboutThe yellow thatch, and part concealed the nestsWhence noisy close-housed sparrows peeped unseen.And Joseph had a little dove-cote placedBetween the gable-window and the eaves,Where two white turtle doves (a gift of loveFrom Mary's kinsman Zachary to her child)Cooed pleasantly; and broke upon the earThe ever dying sound of falling waves.

And so it came to pass, one Summer morn,The mother dove first brought her fledgeling outTo see the sun. It was her only one,And she had breasted it through three long weeksWith patient instinct till it broke the shell;And she had nursed it with all tender care,Another three, and watched the white down growInto full feather, till it left her nest.And now it stood outside its narrow home,With tremulous wings let loose and blinking eyes;While, hovering near, the old dove often triedBy many lures to tempt it to the ground,That they might feed from Jesus' hand, who stoodWatching them from below. The timid birdAt last took heart, and, stretching out its wings,51Brushed the light vine-leaves as it fluttered down.Just then a hawk rose from a tree, and thriceWheeled in the air, and poised his aim to dropOn the young dove, whose quivering plumage swelledAbout the sunken talons as it died.Then the hawk fixed his round eye on the child,Shook from his beak the stained down, screamed, and
flappedHis broad arched wings, and, darting to a cleftI' the rocks, there sullenly devoured his prey.And Jesus heard the mother's anguished cry,Weak like the distant sob of some lost child,Who in his terror runs from path to path,Doubtful alike of all; so did the dove,As though death-stricken, beat about the air;Till, settling on the vine, she drooped her headDeep in her ruffled feathers. She sat there,Brooding upon her loss, and did not moveAll through that day.

And, sitting by her, covered up his face:Until a cloud, alone between the earthAnd sun, passed with its shadow over him.Then Jesus for a moment looked above;And a few drops of rain fell on his brow,Sad, as with broken hints of a lost dream,Or dim foreboding of some future ill.

Now, from a garden near, a fair-haired girlCame, carrying a handful of choice flowers,Which in her lap she sorted orderly,As little children do at Easter-timeTo have all seemly when their Lord shall rise.Then Jesus' covered face she gently raised,Placed in his hand the flowers, and kissed his cheekAnd tried with soothing words to comfort him;He from his eyes spoke thanks.

Fast trickling down his face, drop upon drop,Fell to the ground. That sad look left him notTill night brought sleep, and sleep closed o'er his
woe.

52

II. The Scourging

Again there came a day when Mary satWithin the latticed doorway's fretted shade,Working in bright and many colored threadsA girdle for her child, who at her feetLay with his gentle face upon her lap.Both little hands were crossed and tightly claspedAround her knee. On them the gleams of lightWhich broke through overhanging blossoms warm,And cool transparent leaves, seemed like the gemsWhich deck Our Lady's shrine when incense-smokeAscends before her, like them, dimly seenBehind the stream of white and slanting raysWhich came from heaven, as a veil of light,Across the darkened porch, and glanced uponThe threshold-stone; and here a moth, just bornTo new existence, stopped upon her flight,To bask her blue-eyed scarlet wings spread outBroad to the sun on Jesus' naked foot,Advancing its warm glow to where the grass,Trimmed neatly, grew around the cottage door.

And the child, looking in his mother's face,Would join in converse upon holy thingsWith her, or, lost in thought, would seem to watchThe orange-belted wild bees when they stilledTheir hum, to press with honey-searching trunkThe juicy grape; or drag their waxed legsHalf buried in some leafy cool recessFound in a rose; or else swing heavilyUpon the bending woodbine's fragrant mouth,And rob the flower of sweets to feed the rock,Where, in a hazel-covered crag aloftParting two streams that fell in mist below,The wild bees ranged their waxen vaulted cells.

As the time passed, an ass's yearling colt,Bearing a heavy load, came down the laneThat wound from Nazareth by Joseph's house,Sloping down to the sands. And two young men,The owners of the colt, with many blowsFrom lash and goad wearied its patient sides;Urging it past its strength, so they might winUnto the beach before a ship should sail.53Passing the door, the ass turned round its head,And looked on Jesus: and he knew the look;And, knowing it, knew too the strange dark crossLaying upon its shoulders and its back.It was a foal of that same ass which bareThe infant and the mother, when they fledTo Egypt from the edge of Herod's sword.And Jesus watched them, till they reached the sands.Then, by his mother sitting down once more,Once more there came that shadow of deep griefUpon his brow when Mary looked at him:And she remembered it in days that came.

III. The Crowning with Thorns

And the time passed.The child sat by himself upon the beach,While Joseph's barge freighted with heavy wood,Bound homewards, slowly labored thro' the calm.And, as he watched the long waves swell and break,Run glistening to his feet, and sink again,Three children, and then two, with each an armAround the other, throwing up their songs,Such happy songs as only children know,Came by the place where Jesus sat alone.But, when they saw his thoughtful face, they ceased,And, looking at each other, drew near him;While one who had upon his head a wreathOf hawthorn flowers, and in his hand a reed,Put these both from him, saying, “Here is oneWhom you shall all prefer instead of meTo be our king;” and then he placed the wreathOn Jesus' brow, who meekly bowed his head.And, when he took the reed, the children knelt,And cast their simple offerings at his feet:And, almost wondering why they loved him so,Kissed him with reverence, promising to yieldGrave fealty. And Jesus did returnTheir childish salutations; and they passedSinging another song, whose music chimedWith the sea's murmur, like a low sweet chantChanted in some wide church to Jesus Christ.54And Jesus listened till their voices sankBehind the jutting rocks, and died away:Then the wave broke, and Jesus felt alone.Who being alone, on his fair countenanceAnd saddened beauty all unlike a child'sThe sun of innocence did light no smile,As on the group of happy faces gone.

IV. Jesus Carrying his Cross

And, when the barge arrived, and Joseph bareThe wood upon his shoulders, piece by piece,Up to his shed, Jesus ran by his side,Yearning for strength to help the aged manWho tired himself with work all day for him.But Joseph said: “My child, it is God's willThat I should work for thee until thou artOf age to help thyself.—Bide thou his timeWhich cometh—when thou wilt be strong enough,And on thy shoulders bear a tree like this.”So, while he spake, he took the last one up,Settling it with heaved back, fetching his breath.Then Jesus lifted deep prophetic eyesFull in the old man's face, but nothing said,Running still on to open first the door.

V. The Crucifixion

Joseph had one ewe-sheep; and she brought forth,Early one season, and before her time,A weakly lamb. It chanced to be uponJesus' birthday, when he was eight years old.So Mary said—“We'll name it after
him,”—(Because she ever thought to please her child)—“And we will sign it with a small red crossUpon the back, a mark to know it by.”And Jesus loved the lamb; and, as it grewSpotless and pure and loving like himself,White as the mother's milk it fed upon,He gave not up his care, till it becameOf strength enough to browse and then, becauseJoseph had no land of his own, being poor,He sent away the lamb to feed amongstA neighbour's flock some distance from his home;Where Jesus went to see it every day.

55One late Spring eve, their daily work being done,Mother and child, according to their wont,Went, hand in hand, their chosen evening walk.A pleasant wind rose from the sea, and blewLight flakes of waving silver o'er the fieldsReady for mowing, and the golden WestWarmed half the sky: the low sun flickered throughThe hedge-rows, as they passed; while hawthorn treesScattered their snowy leaves and scent around.The sloping woods were rich in varied leaf,And musical in murmur and in song.

Long ere they reached the field, the wistful lambSaw them approach, and ran from side to sideThe gate, pushing its eager face betweenThe lowest bars, and bleating for pure joy.And Jesus, kneeling by it, fondled withThe little creature, that could scarce find howTo show its love enough; licking his hands,Then, starting from him, gambolled back again,And, with its white feet upon Jesus' knees,Nestled its head by his: and, as the sunSank down behind them, broadening as it nearedThe low horizon, Mary thought it seemedTo clothe them like a glory.—But her lookGrew thoughtful, and she said: “I had, last night,A wandering dream. This brings it to my mind;And I will tell it thee as we walk home.

“I dreamed a weary way I had to goAlone, across an unknown land: such wastesWe sometimes see in visions of the night,Barren and dimly lighted. There was notA tree in sight, save one seared leafless trunk,Like a rude cross; and, scattered here and there,A shrivelled thistle grew: the grass was dead,And the starved soil glared through its scanty tuftsIn bare and chalky patches, cracked and hot,Chafing my tired feet, that caught uponIts parched surface; for a thirsty sunHad sucked all moisture from the ground it burned,And, red and glowing, stared upon me likeA furnace eye when all the flame is spent.I felt it was a dream; and so I tried56To close my eyes, and shut it out from sight.Then, sitting down, I hid my face; but thisOnly increased the dread; and so I gazedWith open eyes into my dream again.The mists had thickened, and had grown quite blackOver the sun; and darkness closed round me.(Thy father said it thundered towards the morn.)But soon, far off, I saw a dull green lightBreak though the clouds, which fell across the earth,Like death upon a bad man's upturned face.Sudden it burst with fifty forked dartsIn one white flash, so dazzling bright it seemedTo hide the landscape in one blaze of light.When the loud crash that came down with it hadRolled its long echo into stillness, throughThe calm dark silence came a plaintive sound;And, looking towards the tree, I saw that itWas scorched with the lightning; and there stoodClose to its foot a solitary sheepBleating upon the edge of a deep pit,Unseen till now, choked up with briars and thorns;And into this a little snow white lamb,Like to thine own, had fallen. It was deadAnd cold, and must have lain there very long;While, all the time, the mother had stood by,Helpless, and moaning with a piteous bleat.The lamb had struggled much to free itself,For many cruel thorns had torn its headAnd bleeding feet; and one had pierced its side,From which flowed blood and water. Strange the thingsWe see in dreams, and hard to understand;—For, stooping down to raise its lifeless head,I thought it changed into the quiet faceOf my own child. Then I awoke, and sawThe dim moon shining through the watery cloudsOn thee awake within thy little bed.”

Then Jesus, looking up, said quietly:“We read that God will speak to those he lovesSometimes in visions. He might speak to theeOf things to come his mercy partly veilsFrom thee, my mother; or perhaps, the thoughtFloated across thy mind of what we read57Aloud before we went to rest last night;—I mean that passage in Isaias' book,Which tells about the patient suffering lamb,And which it seems that no one understands.”Then Mary bent her face to the child's brow,And kissed him twice, and, parting back his hair,Kissed him again. And Jesus felt her tearsDrop warm upon his cheek, and he looked sadWhen silently he put his hand againWithin his mother's. As they came, they went,Hand in hand homeward.With Mary and with Joseph, till the timeWhen all the things should be fulfilled in himWhich God had spoken by his prophets' mouthLong since; and God was with him, and God's grace.

A Pause of Thought

I looked for that which is not, nor can be,And hope deferred made my heart sick, in truth;But years must pass before a hope of youthIs resigned utterly.

I watched and waited with a steadfast will:And, tho' the object seemed to flee awayThat I so longed for, ever, day by day,I watched and waited still.

Sometimes I said,—“This thing shall be no
more;My expectation wearies, and shall cease;I will resign it now, and be at peace:”—Yet never gave it o'er.

Sometimes I said,—“It is an empty nameI long for; to a name why should I giveThe peace of all the days I have to live?”—Yet gave it all the same.

The Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art

The object we have proposed to ourselves in writing on Art, has been
“an endeavour to encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the
simplicity of nature; and also to direct attention, as an auxiliary medium,
to the comparatively few works which Art has yet produced in this
spirit.” It is in accordance with the former and more prominent of
these objects that the writer proposes at present to treat.

An unprejudiced spectator of the recent progress and main direction of
Art in England will have observed, as a great change in the character of the
productions of the modern school, a marked attempt to lead the taste of the
public into a new channel by producing pure transcripts and faithful studies
from nature, instead of conventionalities and feeble reminiscences from the
Old Masters; an entire seeking after originality in a more humble manner
than has been practised since the decline of Italian Art in the Middle Ages.
This has been most strongly shown by the landscape painters, among whom
there are many who have raised an entirely new school of natural painting,
and whose productions undoubtedly surpass all others in the simple attention
to nature in detail as well as in generalities. By this they have succeeded
in earning for themselves the reputation of being the finest landscape
painters in Europe. But, although this success has been great and merited,
it is not of them that we have at present to treat, but rather to recommend
their example to their fellow-labourers, the historical painters.

That the system of study to which this would necessarily lead requires a
somewhat longer and more devoted course of observation than any other is
undoubted; but that it has a reward in a greater effect produced, and more
delight in the searching, is, the writer thinks, equally certain. We shall
find a greater pleasure in proportion to our closer communion with nature,
and by a more exact adherence to all her details, (for nature has no
peculiarities or excentricities) in whatsoever direction her study may
conduct.

This patient devotedness appears to be a conviction peculiar to, or at
least more purely followed by, the early Italian Painters; a feeling which,
exaggerated, and its object mistaken by them, though still held holy and
pure, was the cause of the retirement of many of the greatest men from the
world to the monastery; there, in undisturbed silence and humility, 59

“Monotonous to paintThose endless cloisters and eternal aislesWith the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint,With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard.”

Even with this there is not associated a melancholy feeling alone; for,
although the object was mistaken, yet there is evinced a consciousness of
purpose definite and most elevated; and again, we must remember, as a great
cause of this effect, that the Arts were, for the most part, cleric, and not
laic, or at least were under the predominant influence of the clergy, who
were the most important patrons by far, and their houses the safest
receptacles for the works of the great painter.

The modern artist does not retire to monasteries, or practise discipline;
but he may show his participation in the same high feeling by a firm
attachment to truth in every point of representation, which is the most just
method. For how can good be sought by evil means, or by falsehood, or by
slight in any degree? By a determination to represent the thing and the
whole of the thing, by training himself to the deepest observation of its
fact and detail, enabling himself to reproduce, as far as possible, nature
herself, the painter will best evince his share of faith.

It is by this attachment to truth in its most severe form that the
followers of the Arts have to show that they share in the peculiar character
of the present age,—a humility of knowledge, a diffidence of
attainment; for, as Emerson has well observed,

“The time is infected with Hamlet's
unhappiness,—‘Sicklied o'er with the the pale cast of
thought.’

Is this so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied.
Would we be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and
drink truth dry?”

It has been said that there is presumption in this movement of the modern
school, a want of deference to established authorities, a removing of
ancient landmarks. This is best answered by the profession that nothing can
be more humble than the pretension to the observation of facts alone, and
the truthful rendering of them. If we are not to depart from established
principles, how are we to advance at all? Are we to remain still? Remember,
no thing remains still; that which does not advance falls backward. That
this movement is an advance, and that it is of nature herself, is shown by
its going nearer to truth in every object produced, and by its being guided
by the very principles the ancient painters followed, as soon as they
attained the mere power of representing an object faithfully. 60 These principles are now revived, not from them, though
through their example, but from nature herself.

That the earlier painters came nearer to fact, that they were less of the
art, artificial, cannot be better shown than by the statement of a few
examples from their works. There is a magnificent Niello work by an unknown
Florentine artist, on which is a group of the Saviour in the lap of the
Virgin. She is old, (a most touching point); lamenting aloud, clutches
passionately the heavy-weighted body on her knee; her mouth is open.
Altogether it is one of the most powerful appeals possible to be conceived;
for there are few but will consider this identification with humanity to be
of more effect than any refined or emasculate treatment of the same subject
by later artists, in which we have the fact forgotten for the sake of the
type of religion, which the Virgin was always taken to represent, whence she
is shown as still young; as if, nature being taken typically, it were not
better to adhere to the emblem throughout, confident by this means to
maintain its appropriateness, and, therefore, its value and force.

In the Niello work here mentioned there is a delineation of the Fall, in
which the serpent has given to it a human head with a most sweet, crafty
expression. Now in these two instances the style is somewhat rude; but there
are passion and feeling in it. This is not a question of mere execution, but
of mind, however developed. Let us not mistake, however, from this that
execution should be neglected, but only maintained as a most important
aid, and in that quality alone, so that we do not forget the soul for
the hand. The power of representing an object, that its entire intention may
be visible, its lesson felt, is all that is absolutely necessary: mere
technicalities of performance are but additions; and not the real intent and
end of painting, as many have considered them to be. For as the knowledge is
stronger and more pure in Masaccio than in the Caracci, and the faith higher
and greater,—so the first represents nature with more true feeling and
love, with a deeper insight into her tenderness; he follows her more humbly,
and has produced to us more of her simplicity; we feel his appeal to be more
earnest: it is the crying out of the man, with none of the strut of the
actor.

Let us have the mind and the mind's-workings, not the remains of earnest
thought which has been frittered away by a long dreary course of preparatory
study, by which all life has been evaporated. Never forget that there is in
the wide river of nature something which every body who has a rod and line
may catch, precious things which every one may dive for.

It need not be feared that this course of education would lead to a 61 repetition of the toe-trippings of the earliest
Italian school, a sneer which is manifestly unfair; for this error, as well
as several others of a similar kind, was not the result of blindness or
stupidity, but of the simple ignorance of what had not been applied to the
service of painting at their time. It cannot be shown that they were
incorrect in expression, false in drawing, or unnatural in what is called
composition. On the contrary, it is demonstrable that they exceeded all
others in these particulars, that they partook less of coarseness and of
conventional sentiment than any school which succeeded them, and that they
looked more to nature; in fact, were more true, and less artificial. That
their subjects were generally of a melancholy cast is acknowledged, which
was an accident resulting from the positions their pictures were destined to
occupy. No man ever complained that the Scriptures were morbid in their
tendency because they treat of serious and earnest subjects: then why of the
pictures which represent such? A certain gaunt length and slenderness have
also been commented upon most severely; as if the Italians of the fourteenth
century were as so many dray horses, and the artist were blamed for not
following his model. The consequence of this direction of taste is that we
have life-guardsmen and pugilists taken as models for kings, gentlemen, and
philosophers. The writer was once in a studio where a man, six feet two
inches in height, with atlantean shoulders, was sitting for King Alfred.
That there is no greater absurdity than this will be perceived by any one
that has ever read the description of the person of the king given by his
historian and friend Asser.

The sciences have become almost exact within the present century. Geology
and chemistry are almost re-instituted. The first has been nearly created;
the second expanded so widely that it now searches and measures the
creation. And how has this been done but by bringing greater knowledge to
bear upon a wider range of experiment; by being precise in the search after
truth? If this adherence to fact, to experiment and not theory,—to
begin at the beginning and not fly to the end,—has added so much to
the knowledge of man in science; why may it not greatly assist the moral
purposes of the Arts? It cannot be well to degrade a lesson by falsehood.
Truth in every particular ought to be the aim of the artist. Admit no
untruth: let the priest's garment be clean.

Let us now return to the Early Italian Painters. A complete refutation of
any charge that the character of their school was neccessarily gloomy will
be found in the works of Benozzo Gozzoli, as in his ‘Vineyard’
where there are some grape-gatherers the most elegant and graceful
imaginable; this painter's children are the 62
most natural ever painted. In Ghiberti,—in Fra Angilico, (well
named),—in Masaccio,—in Ghirlandajo, and in Baccio della Porta,
in fact in nearly all the works of the painters of this school, will be
found a character of gentleness, grace, and freedom, which cannot be
surpassed by any other school, be that which it may; and it is evident that
this result must have been obtained by their peculiar attachment to simple
nature alone, their casting aside all ornament, or rather their perfect
ignorance of such,—a happy fortune none have shared with them. To show
that with all these qualifications they have been pre-eminent in energy and
dignity, let us instance the ‘Air Demons’ of Orcagna, where
there is a woman borne through the air by an Evil Spirit. Her expression is
the most terrible imaginable; she grasps her bearer with desperation,
looking out around her into space, agonized with terror. There are other
figures in the same picture of men who have been cast down, and are falling
through the air: one descends with his hands tied, his chin up, and long
hair hanging from his head in a mass. One of the Evil Spirits hovering over
them has flat wings, as though they were made of plank: this gives a most
powerful character to the figure. Altogether, this picture contains perhaps
a greater amount of bold imagination and originality of conception than any
of the kind ever painted. For sublimity there are few works which equal the
‘Archangels’ of Giotto, who stand singly, holding their
sceptres, and with relapsed wings. The ‘Paul’ of Masaccio is a
well-known example of the dignified simplicity of which these artists
possessed so large a share. These instances might be multiplied without end;
but surely enough have been cited in the way of example to show the
surpassing talent and knowledge of these painters, and their consequent
success, by following natural principles, until the introduction of false
and meretricious ornament led the Arts from the simple chastity of nature,
which it is as useless to attempt to elevate as to endeavour to match the
works of God by those of man. Let the artist be content to study nature
alone, and not dream of elevating any of her works, which are alone worthy
of representation.{5}

{5} The sources from which these examples are drawn, and where many more
might be found, are principally:—D'Agincourt: “Histoire
de l'Art par les Monumens;”—Rossini: “Storia
della Pittura;”—Ottley: “Italian School of
Design,” and his 120 Fac-similes of scarce prints;—and the
“Gates of San Giovanni,” by Ghiberti; of which last a cast of
one entire is set up in the Central School of Design, Somerset House;
portions of the same are also in the Royal Academy.

The Arts have always been most important moral guides. Their 63 flourishing has always been coincident with the most
wholesome period of a nation's: never with the full and gaudy bloom which
but hides corruption, but the severe health of its most active and vigorous
life; its mature youth, and not the floridity of age, which, like the wide
full open petals of a flower, indicates that its glory is about to pass
away. There has certainly always been a period like the short warm season
the Canadians call the “Indian Summer,” which is said to be
produced by the burning of the western forests, causing a factitious revival
of the dying year: so there always seems to have been a flush of life before
the final death of the Arts in each period:—in Greece, in the
sculptors and architects of the time after Pericles; in the Germans, with
the successors of Albert Durer. In fact, in every school there has been a
spring, a summer, an autumn, an “Indian Summer,” and then
winter; for as surely as the “Indian Summer,” (which is, after
all, but an unhealthy flush produced by destruction,) so surely does winter
come. In the Arts, the winter has been exaggerated action, conventionalism,
gaudy colour, false sentiment, voluptuousness, and poverty of invention:
and, of all these characters, that which has been the most infallible herald
of decease, voluptuousness, has been the most rapid and sure. Corruption
lieth under it; and every school, and indeed every individual, that has
pandered to this, and departed from the true spirit in which all study
should be conducted, sought to degrade and sensualize, instead of chasten
and render pure, the humanity it was instructed to elevate. So has that
school, and so have those individuals, lost their own power and descended
from their high seat, fallen from the priest to the mere parasite, from the
law-giver to the mere courtier.

If we have entered upon a new age, a new cycle of man, of which there are
many signs, let us have it unstained by this vice of sensuality of mind. The
English school has lately lost a great deal of this character; why should we
not be altogether free from it? Nothing can degrade a man or a nation more
than this meanness; why should we not avoid it? Sensuality is a meanness
repugnant to youth, and disgusting in age: a degradation at all times. Let
us say

“My strength is as the strength of ten,Because my heart is pure.”

Bearing this in mind,—the conviction that, without the pure heart,
nothing can be done worthy of us; by this, that the most successful school
of painters has produced upon us the intention of their earnestness at this
distance of time,—let us follow in their path, 64 guided by their light: not so subservient as to lose our
own freedom, but in the confidence of equal power and equal destiny; and
then rely that we shall obtain the same success and equal or greater power,
such as is given to the age in which we live. This is the only course that
is worthy of the influence which might be exerted by means of the Arts upon
the character of the people: therefore let it be the only one for us to
follow if we hope to share in the work.

That the real power of the Arts, in conjunction with Poetry, upon the
actions of any age is, or might be, predominant above all others will be
readily allowed by all that have given any thought to the subject: and that
there is no assignable limit to the good that may be wrought by their
influence is another point on which there can be small doubt. Let us then
endeavour to call up and exert this power in the worthiest manner, not
forgetting that we chose a difficult path in which there are many snares,
and holding in mind the motto, “No Cross, no Crown.”

Believe that there is that in the fact of truth, though it be only in the
character of a single leaf earnestly studied, which may do its share in the
great labor of the world: remember that it is by truth alone that the Arts
can ever hold the position for which they were intended, as the most
powerful instruments, the most gentle guides; that, of all classes, there is
none to whom the celebrated words of Lessing, “That the destinies of a
nation depend upon its young men between nineteen and twenty-five years of
age,” can apply so well as to yourselves. Recollect, that your portion
in this is most important: that your share is with the poet's share; that,
in every careless thought or neglected doubt, you shelve your duty, and
forsake your trust; fulfil and maintain these, whether in the hope of
personal fame and fortune, or from a sense of power used to its intentions;
and you may hold out both hands to the world. Trust it, and it will have
faith in you; will hearken to the precepts you may have permission to
impart.

Song

Oh! roses for the flush of youth,And laurel for the perfect prime;But pluck an ivy-branch for me,Grown old before my time.

Oh! violets for the grave of youth,And bay for those dead in their prime;Give me the withered leaves I choseBefore in the olden time.

65

Morning Sleep

Another day hath dawnedSince, hastily and tired, I threw myselfInto the dark lap of advancing sleep.Meanwhile through the oblivion of the nightThe ponderous world its old course hath fulfilled;And now the gradual sun begins to throwIts slanting glory on the heads of trees,And every bird stirs in its nest revealed,And shakes its dewy wings.

A blessed giftUnto the weary hath been mine to-night,Slumber unbroken: now it floats away:—But whether 'twere not best to woo it still,The head thus properly disposed, the eyesIn a continual dawning, mingling earthAnd heaven with vagrant fantasies,—one hour,—Yet for another hour? I will not breakThe shining woof; I will not rudely leapOut of this golden atmosphere, through whichI see the forms of immortalities.Verily, soon enough the laboring dayWith its necessitous unmusical callsWill force the indolent conscience into life.

The uncouth moth upon the window-panesHath ceased to flap, or traverse with blind whirrThe room's dusk corners; and the leaves withoutVibrate upon their thin stems with the breezeFlying towards the light. To an Eastern valeThat light may now be waning, and acrossThe tall reeds by the Ganges, lotus-paved,Lengthening the shadows of the banyan-tree.The rice-fields are all silent in the glow,All silent the deep heaven without a cloud,Burning like molten gold. A red canoeCrosses with fan-like paddles and the soundOf feminine song, freighted with great-eyed maidsWhose unzoned bosoms swell on the rich air;66A lamp is in each hand; some mystic riteGo they to try. Such rites the birds may see,Ibis or emu, from their cocoa nooks,—What time the granite sentinels that watchThe mouths of cavern-temples hail the firstFaint star, and feel the gradual darkness blendTheir august lineaments;—what time HarounPerambulated Bagdat, and none knewHe was the Caliph who knocked soberlyBy Giafar's hand at their gates shut betimes;—What time prince Assad sat on the high hill'Neath the pomegranate-tree, long wearyingFor his lost brother's step;—what time, as now,Along our English sky, flame-furrows cleaveAnd break the quiet of the cold blue clouds,And the first rays look in upon our roofs.

Let the day come or go; there is no letOr hindrance to the indolent wilfulnessOf fantasy and dream-land. Place and timeAnd bodily weight are for the wakeful only.Now they exist not: life is like that cloud,Floating, poised happily in mid-air, bathedIn a sustaining halo, soft yet clear,Voyaging on, though to no bourne; all heavenIts own wide home alike, earth far belowFading still further, further. Yet we see,In fancy, its green fields, its towers, and townsSmoking with life, its roads with traffic throngedAnd tedious travellers within iron cars,Its rivers with their ships, and laborers,To whose raised eye, as, stretched upon the sward,They may enjoy some interval of rest,That little cloud appears no living thing,Although it moves, and changes as it moves.There is an old and memorable taleOf some sound sleeper being borne awayBy banded fairies in the mottled hourBefore the cockcrow, through unknown weird woodsAnd mighty forests, where the boughs and rootsOpened before him, closed behind;—thenceforthA wise man lived he, all unchanged by years.Perchance again these fairies may return,51And evermore shall I remain as now,A dreamer half awake, a wandering cloud!

The spellOf Merlin old that ministered to fate,The tales of visiting ghosts, or fairy elves,Or witchcraft, are no fables. But his taskIs ended with the night;—the thin white moonEvades the eye, the sun breaks through the trees,And the charmed wizard comes forth a mere manFrom out his circle. Thus it is, whate'erWe know and understand hath lost the powerOver us;—we are then the master. StillAll Fancy's world is real; no diverse markIs on the stores of memory, whether gleanedFrom childhood's early wonder at the charmThat bound the lady in the echoless caveWhere lay the sheath'd sword and the bugle horn,—Or from the fullgrown intellect, that worksFrom age to age, exploring darkest truths,With sympathy and knowledge in one yokePloughing the harvest land.

The lark is up,Piercing the dazzling sky beyond the searchOf the acutest love: enough for meTo hear its song: but now it dies away,Leaving the chirping sparrow to attractThe listless ear,—a minstrel, sooth to say,Nearly as good. And now a hum like thatOf swarming bees on meadow-flowers comes up.Each hath its just and yet luxurious joy,As if to live were to be blessed. The mildMaternal influence of nature thusEnnobles both the sentient and the dead;—The human heart is as an altar wreathed,On which old wine pours, streaming o'er the leaves,And down the symbol-carved sides. Behold!Unbidden, yet most welcome, who be these?The high-priests of this altar, poet-kings;—Chaucer, still young with silvery beard that seemsWorthy the adoration of a child;And Spenser, perfect master, to whom allSweet graces ministered. The shut eye weaves68A picture;—the immortals pass alongInto the heaven, and others follow still,Each on his own ray-path, till all the fieldIs threaded with the foot-prints of the great.And now the passengers are lost; long linesOnly are left, all intertwisted, darkUpon a flood of light......... I am awake!I hear domestic voices on the stair.

Already hath the mower finished halfHis summer day's ripe task; already hathHis scythe been whetted often; and the heapsBehind him lie like ridges from the tide.In sooth, it is high time to wave awayThe cup of Comus, though with nectar filled,And sweet as odours to the marinerFrom lands unseen, across the wide blank sea.

Sonnet

When midst the summer-roses the warm beesAre swarming in the sun, and thou—so fullOf innocent glee—dost with thy white hands pullPink scented apples from the garden treesTo fling at me, I catch them, on my knees,Like those who gather'd manna; and I cullSome hasty buds to pelt thee—white as woolLilies, or yellow jonquils, or heartsease;—Then I can speak my love, ev'n tho' thy smilesGush out among thy blushes, like a flockOf bright birds from rose-bowers; but when thou'rt goneI have no speech,—no magic that beguiles,The stream of utterance from the harden'd rock:—The dial cannot speak without the sun!

69

Stars and Moon

Beneath the stars and summer moonA pair of wedded lovers walk,Upon the stars and summer moonThey turn their happy eyes, and talk.

EDITH.

“Those stars, that moon, for me they shineWith lovely, but no startling light;My joy is much, but not as thine,A joy that fills the pulse, like fright.”

ALFRED.

“My love, a darken'd conscience clothesThe world in sackcloth; and, I fear,The stain of life this new heart loathes,Still clouds my sight; but thine is clear.

“True vision is no startling boonTo one in whom it always lies;But if true sight of stars and moonWere strange to thee, it would surprise.

“Disease it is and dearth in meWhich thou believest genius, wealth;And that imagined want in theeIs riches and abundant health.

“O, little merit I my bride!And therefore will I love her more;Renewing, by her gentle side,Lost worth: let this thy smile restore!”

EDITH.

“Ah, love! we both, with longing deep,Love words and actions kind, which areMore good for life than bread or sleep,More beautiful than Moon or Star.”

70

On the Mechanism of a Historical Picture

Part I. The Design

In tracing these memoranda of the course to be pursued in producing a
work of the class commonly denominated “Historic Art,” we have
no wish to set ourselves in opposition to the practice of other artists. We
are quite willing to believe that there may be various methods of working
out the same idea, each productive of a satisfactory result. Should any one
therefore regard it as a subject for controversy, we would only reply that,
if different, or to them better, methods be adopted by other painters, no
less certain is it that there are numbers who at the onset of their career
have not the least knowledge of any one of these methods; and that it is
chiefly for such that these notes have been penned. In short, that to all
about to paint their first picture we address ourselves.

The first advice that should be given, on painting a historical picture,
ought undoubtedly to be on the choosing of a fit subject; but, the object of
the present paper being purely practical, it would ill commence with a
question which would entail a dissertation bearing upon the most abstract
properties of Art. Should it afterwards appear necessary, we may append such
a paper to the last number of these articles; but, for the present, we will
content ourselves with beginning where the student may first encounter a
difficulty in giving body to his idea.

The first care of the painter, after having selected his subject, should
be to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the character of the times,
and habits of the people, which he is about to represent; and next, to
consult the proper authorities for his costume, and such objects as may fill
his canvass; as the architecture, furniture, vegetation or landscape, or
accessories, necessary to the elucidation of the subject. By not pursuing
this course, the artist is in danger of imagining an effect, or disposition
of lines, incompatible with the costume of his figures, or objects
surrounding them; and it will be found always a most difficult thing to
efface an idea that has once taken possession of the mind. Besides which, it
is impossible to conceive a design with any truth, not being acquainted with
the character, habits, and appearance, of the people represented.

Having, by such means, secured the materials of which his work must be
composed, the artist must endeavour, as far as lies in his power, to embody
the picture in his thoughts, before having recourse to paper. He must
patiently consider his subject, revolving in his 71 mind every means that may assist the clear development
of the story: giving the most prominent places to the most important actors,
and carefully rejecting incidents that cannot be expressed by pantomimic art
without the aid of text. He must also, in this mental forerunner of his
picture, arrange the “grouping” of his figures,—that is,
the disposing of them in such agreeable clusters or situations on his
canvass as may be compatible with the dramatic truth of the whole,
(technically called the lines of a composition.) He must also consider the
color, and disposition of light and dark masses in his design, so as to call
attention to the principal objects, (technically called the
“effect.”) Thus, to recapitulate, the painter, in his first
conception of his picture, will have to combine three qualities, each
subordinate to the other;—the intellectual, or clear development,
dramatic truth, and sentiment, of his incident;—the construction, or
disposition of his groups and lines, as most conducive to clearness, effect,
and harmony;—and the chromatic, or arrangement of colors, light and
shade, most suitable to impress and attract the beholder.{6}

{6} Many artists, chiefly of the schools not colorists, are in the habit
of making their designs in outline, leaving the colors and light and shade
to be thought of afterwards. This plan may offer facilities; but we doubt if
it be possible to arrange satisfactorily the colors of a work which has been
designed in outline without consideration of these qualities.

Having settled these points in his mind, as definitely as his faculties
will allow of, the student will take pencil and paper, and sketch roughly
each separate figure in his composition, studying his own acting, (in a
looking-glass) or else that of any friend he may have of an artistic or
poetic temperament, but not employing for the purpose the ordinary paid
models.—It will be always found that they are stiff and feelingless,
and, as such, tend to curb the vivacity of a first conception, so much so
that the artist may believe an action impossible, through the want of
comprehension of the model, which to himself or a friend might prove
easy.

Here let the artist spare neither time nor labor, but exert himself
beyond his natural energies, seeking to enter into the character of each
actor, studying them one after the other, limb for limb, hand for hand,
finger for finger, noting each inflection of joint, or tension of sinew,
searching for dramatic truth internally in himself, and in all external
nature, shunning affectation and exaggeration, and striving after pathos,
and purity of feeling, with patient endeavor and utter simplicity of heart.
For on this labor must depend the success of his work with the public.
Artists may praise his color, 72 drawing, or
manipulation, his chiaroscuro, or his lines; but the clearness, truth, and
sentiment, of his work will alone affect the many.

The action of each figure being now determinate, the next step will be to
make a sketch in oil of the whole design; after which, living models, as
like the artist's conception as can be found, must be procured, to make
outlines of the nude of each figure, and again sketches of the same, draped
in the proper costume.{7}

{7} There is always difficulty attending this very necessary portion of
the study of the picture; because, if the dresses be borrowed or hired, at
this period they may be only wanted for a few hours, and perhaps not
required again for some months to paint into the picture.—Again, if
the costume have to be made, and of expensive material, the portion of it
seen may be sufficient to pin on to a lay figure, without having the whole
made, which could not be worn by the living model. However, with all the
larger or loose draperies, it is very necessary to sketch them first from
the living model.

From these studies, the painter will prepare a second sketch, in outline,
of the whole, being, in fact, a small and hasty cartoon.{8}

{8} Should the picture be of small dimensions, it will be found more
expeditious to make an outline of it on paper the full size, which can be
traced on to the canvass, keeping the latter clean. On the contrary, should
the painting be large, the outline had better be made small, and squared to
transfer to the canvass.

In this last preparation of the design, the chief care of the student
will be the grouping, and the correct size and place of each figure; also
the perspective of the architecture and ground plan will now have to be
settled; a task requiring much patient calculation, and usually proving a
source of disgust to the novice not endowed with much perseverance. But,
above all, the quality to be most studied in this outline design will be the
proportion of the whole work.

And with a few remarks on this quality, which might appropriately be
termed “constructive beauty in art,” we will close this paper on
“the Design,” as belonging more properly to the mechanical than
the intellectual side of art; as being rather the slow growth of experience
than the spontaneous impulse of the artistic temperament. It is a feature in
art rather apt to savor of conventionality to such as would look on nature
as the only school of art, who would consider it but as the exponent of
thought and feeling; while, on the other hand, we fear it likely to be
studied to little effect by such as receive with indiscriminate and
phlegmatic avidity all that is handed down to them in the shape of
experience or time-sanctioned rule. But plastic art claims not merely our
sympathy, in its highest capacity to emit thought and sentiment; but as
form, colour, light, life, and beauty; and who shall settle the claims
between 73 thought and beauty? But art has
beauties of its own, which neither impair nor contradict the beauties of
nature; but which are not of nature, and yet are, inasmuch as art itself is
but part of nature: and of such, the beauties of the nature of art, is the
feeling for constructive beauty. It interferes not with truth or sentiment;
it is not the cause of unlikely order and improbable symmetry; it is not
bounded by line or rule, nor taught by theory. It is a feeling for
proportion, ever varying from an infinity of conflicting causes, that
balances the picture as it balances the Gothic edifice; it is a germ planted
in the breast of the artist, that gradually expands by cultivation.

To those who would foster its development the only rule we could offer
would be never to leave a design, while they imagine they could alter for
the better (subordinate to the truth of nature) the place of a single figure
or group, or the direction of a line.

And to such as think it beneath their care we can only say that they
neglect a refinement, of which every great master takes advantage to
increase the fascination which beauty, feeling, or passion, exercises over
the multitude.

A Testimony

I said of laughter: It is vain;—Of mirth I said: What profits it?—Therefore I found a book, and writTherein, how ease and also pain,How health and sickness, every oneIs vanity beneath the sun.

Man walks in a vain shadow; heDisquieteth himself in vain.The things that were shall be again.The rivers do not fill the sea,But turn back to their secret source:The winds, too, turn upon their course.

Our treasures, moth and rust corrupt;Or thieves break through and steal; or theyMake themselves wings and fly away.One man made merry as he supp'd,Nor guessed how when that night grew dim,His soul would be required of him.

74We build our houses on the sandComely withoutside, and within;But when the winds and rains beginTo beat on them, they cannot stand;They perish, quickly overthrown,Loose at the hidden basement stone.

All things are vanity, I said:Yea vanity of vanities.The rich man dies; and the poor dies:The worm feeds sweetly on the dead.Whatso thou lackest, keep this trust:—All in the end shall have but dust.

The one inheritance, which bestAnd worst alike shall find and share.The wicked cease from troubling there,And there the weary are at rest;There all the wisdom of the wiseIs vanity of vanities.

Man flourishes as a green leaf,And as a leaf doth pass away;Or, as a shade that cannot stay,And leaves no track, his course is brief:Yet doth man hope and fear and planTill he is dead:—oh foolish man!

Why should we hasten to ariseSo early, and so late take rest?Our labor is not good; our bestHopes fade; our heart is stayed on lies:Verily, we sow wind; and weShall reap the whirlwind, verily.

He who hath little shall not lack;He who hath plenty shall decay:Our fathers went; we pass away;75Our children follow on our track:So generations fail, and soThey are renewed, and come and go.

The earth is fattened with our dead;She swallows more and doth not cease;Therefore her wine and oil increaseAnd her sheaves are not numbered;Therefore her plants are green, and allHer pleasant trees lusty and tall.

Therefore the maidens cease to sing,And the young men are very sad;Therefore the sowing is not glad,And weary is the harvesting.Of high and low, of great and small,Vanity is the lot of all.

A king dwelt in Jerusalem:He was the wisest man on earth;He had all riches from his birth,And pleasures till he tired of them:Then, having tested all things, heWitnessed that all are vanity.

O When and Where

Under the cold moist herbsNo wind the calm disturbs.O when and where?Nor here nor there.Grass cools my face, grief heats my heart.Will this life I swoon with never part?

76

Fancies at Leisure

I. Noon Rest

Following the river's course,We come to where the sedges plantTheir thickest twinings at its source;—A spot that makes the heart to pant,Feeling its rest and beauty. PullThe reeds' tops thro' your fingers; dullYour sense of the world's life; and tossThe thought away of hap or cross:Then shall the river seem to callYour name, and the slow quiet crawlBetween your eyelids like a swoon;And all the sounds at heat of noonAnd all the silence shall so singYour eyes asleep as that no wingOf bird in rustling by, no proneWillow-branch on your hair, no droneDroning about and past you,—noughtMay soon avail to rouse you, caughtWith sleep thro' heat in the sun's light,—So good, tho' losing sound and sight,You scarce would waken, if you might.

II. A Quiet Place

My friend, are not the grasses here as tallAs you would wish to see? The runnell's fallOver the rise of pebbles, and its blinkOf shining points which, upon this side, sinkIn dark, yet still are there; this ragged craneSpreading his wings at seeing us with vainTerror, forsooth; the trees, a pulpy stockOf toadstools huddled round them; and the flock—Black wings after black wings—of ancient rookBy rook; has not the whole scene got a lookAs though we were the first whose breath should fanIn two this spider's web, to give a span77Of life more to three flies? See, there's a stoneSeems made for us to sit on. Have men goneBy here, and passed? or rested on that bankOr on this stone, yet seen no cause to thankFor the grass growing here so green and rank?

III. A Fall of Rain

It was at day-break my thought said:“The moon makes chequered chestnut-shadeThere by the south-side where the vineGrapples the wall; and if it shineThis evening thro' the boughs and leaves,And if the wind with silence weavesMore silence than itself, each stalkOf flower just swayed by it, we'll walk,Mary and I, when every fowlHides beak and eyes in breast, the owlOnly awake to hoot.”—But cloverIs beaten down now, and birds hover,Peering for shelter round; no bladeOf grass stands sharp and tall; men wadeThro' mire with frequent plashing stingOf rain upon their faces. Sing,Then, Mary, to me thro' the dark:But kiss me first: my hand shall markTime, pressing yours the while I hark.

IV. Sheer Waste

Is it a little thing to lie down hereBeside the water, looking into it,And see there grass and fallen leaves interknit,And small fish sometimes passing thro' some bitOf tangled grass where there's an outlet clear?

And then a drift of wind perhaps will come,And blow the insects hovering all aboutInto the water. Some of them get out;Others swim with sharp twitches; and you doubtWhether of life or death for other some.

78Meanwhile the blueflies sway themselves alongOver the water's surface, or close by;Not one in ten beyond the grass will flyThat closely skirts the stream; nor will your eyeMeet any where the sunshine is not strong.

After a time you find, you know not how,That it is quite a stretch of energyTo do what you have done unconsciously,—That is, pull up the grass; and then you seeYou may as well rise and be going now.

So, having walked for a few steps, you fallBodily on the grass under the sun,And listen to the rustle, one by one,Of the trees' leaves; and soon the wind has doneFor a short space, and it is quiet all;

Except because the rooks will make a cawJust now and then together: and the breezeSoon rises up again among the trees,Making the grass, moreover, bend and teaseYour face, but pleasantly. Mayhap the paw

Of a dog touches you and makes you riseUpon one arm to pat him; and he licksYour hand for that. A child is throwing sticks,Hard by, at some half-dozen cows, which fixUpon him their unmoved contented eyes.

The sun's heat now is painful. Scarce can youMove, and even less lie still. You shuffle then,Poised on your arms, again to shade. AgainThere comes a pleasant laxness on you. WhenYou have done enough of nothing, you will go.

Some hours perhaps have passed. Say not you flingThese hours or such-like recklessly away.Seeing the grass and sun and children, say,Is not this something more than idle play,Than careless waste? Is it a little thing?

79

The Light beyond

I

Though we may brood with keenest subtlety,Sending our reason forth, like Noah's dove,To know why we are here to die, hate, love,With Hope to lead and help our eyes to seeThrough labour daily in dim mystery,Like those who in dense theatre and hall,When fire breaks out or weight-strained rafters fall,Towards some egress struggle doubtfully;Though we through silent midnight may addressThe mind to many a speculative page,Yearning to solve our wrongs and wretchedness,Yet duty and wise passiveness are won,—(So it hath been and is from age to age)—Though we be blind, by doubting not the sun.

II

Bear on to death serenely, day by day,Midst losses, gains, toil, and monotony,The ignorance of social apathy,And artifice which men to men display:Like one who tramps a long and lonely wayUnder the constant rain's inclemency,With vast clouds drifting in obscurity,And sudden lightnings in the welkin grey.To-morrow may be bright with healthy pleasure,Banishing discontents and vain defiance:The pearly clouds will pass to a slow measure,Wayfarers walk the dusty road in joyance,The wide heaths spread far in the sun's alliance,Among the furze inviting us to leisure.

III

Vanity, say they, quoting him of old.Yet, if full knowledge lifted us sereneTo look beyond mortality's stern screen,A reconciling vision could be told,Brighter than western clouds or shapes of goldThat change in amber fires,—or the demesneOf ever mystic sleep. Mists intervene,Which then would melt, to show our eyesight boldFrom God a perfect chain throughout the skies,Like Jacob's ladder light with winged men.And as this world, all notched to terrene eyesWith Alpine ranges, smoothes to higher ken,So death and sin and social miseries;By God fixed as His bow o'er moor and fen.

80

The Blessed Damozel

The blessed Damozel leaned outFrom the gold bar of Heaven:Her blue grave eyes were deeper muchThan a deep water, even.She had three lilies in her hand,And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,No wrought flowers did adorn,But a white rose of Mary's giftOn the neck meetly worn;And her hair, lying down her back,Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a dayOne of God's choristers;The wonder was not yet quite goneFrom that still look of hers;Albeit to them she left, her dayHad counted as ten years.

(To one it is ten years of years:........ Yet now, here in this placeSurely she leaned o'er me,—her hairFell all about my face.........Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.The whole year sets apace.)

It was the terrace of God's houseThat she was standing on,—By God built over the sheer depthIn which Space is begun;So high, that looking downward thence,She could scarce see the sun.

It lies from Heaven across the floodOf ether, as a bridge.Beneath, the tides of day and nightWith flame and blackness ridgeThe void, as low as where this earthSpins like a fretful midge.

81But in those tracts, with her, it wasThe peace of utter lightAnd silence. For no breeze may stirAlong the steady flightO seraphim; no echo there,Beyond all depth or height.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends,Playing at holy games,Spake, gentle-mouthed, among themselves,Their virginal chaste names;And the souls, mounting up to God,Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself, and stoopedInto the vast waste calm;Till her bosom's pressure must have madeThe bar she leaned on warm,And the lilies lay as if asleepAlong her bended arm.

From the fixt lull of heaven, she sawTime, like a pulse, shake fierceThrough all the worlds. Her gaze still strove,In that steep gulph, to pierceThe swarm: and then she spake, as whenThe stars sang in their spheres.

“I wish that he were come to me,For he will come,” she said.“Have I not prayed in solemn heaven?On earth, has he not prayed?Are not two prayers a perfect strength?And shall I feel afraid?

“When round his head the aureole clings,And he is clothed in white,I'll take his hand, and go with himTo the deep wells of light,And we will step down as to a streamAnd bathe there in God's sight.

“We two will stand beside that shrine,Occult, withheld, untrod,Whose lamps tremble continuallyWith prayer sent up to God;And where each need, revealed, expectsIts patient period.

82“We two will lie i' the shadow ofThat living mystic treeWithin whose secret growth the DoveSometimes is felt to be,While every leaf that His plumes touchSaith His name audibly.

“And I myself will teach to him—I myself, lying so,—The songs I sing here; which his mouthShall pause in, hushed and slow,Finding some knowledge at each pauseAnd some new thing to know.”

(Alas! to her wise simple mindThese things were all but knownBefore: they trembled on her sense,—Her voice had caught their tone.Alas for lonely Heaven! AlasFor life wrung out alone!

Alas, and though the end were reached?........Was thy part understoodOr borne in trust? And for her sakeShall this too be found good?—May the close lips that knew not prayerPraise ever, though they would?)

“There will I ask of Christ the LordThus much for him and me:—To have more blessing than on earthIn nowise; but to beAs then we were,—being as thenAt peace. Yea, verily.

“Yea, verily; when he is comeWe will do thus and thus:Till this my vigil seem quite strangeAnd almost fabulous;We two will live at once, one life;And peace shall be with us.”

She gazed, and listened, and then said,Less sad of speech than mild:“All this is when he comes.” She ceased;The light thrilled past her, filledWith Angels, in strong level lapse.Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their flightWas vague 'mid the poised spheres.And then she cast her arms alongThe golden barriers,And laid her face between her hands,And wept. (I heard her tears.)

84

Reviews

The Strayed Reveller; and other Poems. By A.—Fellowes,
Ludgate-street.—1849.

If any one quality may be considered common to all living poets, it is
that which we have heard aptly described as self-consciousness. In
this many appear to see the only permanent trace of the now old usurping
deluge of Byronism; but it is truly a fact of the time,—less a
characteristic than a portion of it. Every species of composition—the
dramatic, the narrative, the lyric, the didactic, the descriptive—is
imbued with this spirit; and the reader may calculate with almost equal
certainty on becoming acquainted with the belief of a poet as of a
theologian or a moralist. Of the evils resulting from the practice, the most
annoying and the worst is that some of the lesser poets, and all mere
pretenders, in their desire to emulate the really great, feel themselves
under a kind of obligation to assume opinions, vague, incongruous, or
exaggerated, often not only not their own, but the direct reverse of their
own,—a kind of meanness that has replaced, and goes far to compensate
for, the flatteries of our literary ancestors. On the other hand, this
quality has created a new tie of interest between the author and his public,
enhances the significance of great works, and confers value on even the
slightest productions of a true poet.

That the systematic infusion of this spirit into the drama and epic
compositions is incompatible with strict notions of art will scarcely be
disputed: but such a general objection does not apply in the case of lyric
poetry, where even the character of the subject is optional. It is an
instance of this kind that we are now about to consider.

“The Strayed Reveller and other Poems,” constitutes, we
believe, the first published poetical work of its author, although the
following would rather lead to the inference that he is no longer young.

Accordingly, we find but little passion in the volume, only four 85 pieces (for “The Strayed Reveller” can
scarcely be so considered) being essentially connected with it. Of these the
“Modern Sappho” appears to us not only inferior, but as
evidencing less maturity both of thought and style; the second,
“Stagyrus,” is an urgent appeal to God; the third, “The
New Sirens,” though passionate in utterance, is, in purpose, a
rejection of passion, as having been weighed in the balance and found
wanting; and, in the last, where he tells of the voice which once

“Blew such a thrilling summons to his will,Yet could not shake it;Drained all the life his full heart had to spill;Yet could not break it:”—

he records the “intolerable change of thought”
with which it now comes to his “long-sobered heart.” Perhaps
“The Forsaken Merman” should be added to these; but the grief
here is more nearly approaching to gloomy submission and the sickness of
hope deferred.

The lessons that the author would learn of nature are, as set forth in
the sonnet that opens the volume,

“Of toil unsevered from tranquillity;Of labor that in one short hour outgrowsMan's noisy schemes,—accomplished in repose,Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.”—p. 1.

His conception of the poet is of one who

“Sees before him life unroll,A placid and continuous whole;That general life which does not cease;Whose secret is, not joy, but peace;That life, whose dumb wish is not missedIf birth proceeds, if things subsist;The life of plants and stones and rain;The life he craves:—if not in vainFate gave, what chance shall not control,His sad lucidity of soul.”—pp. 123-4.

(Resignation.)

Such is the author's purpose in these poems. He recognises in each thing
a part of the whole: and the poet must know even as he sees, or breathes, as
by a spontaneous, half-passive exercise of a faculty: he must receive rather
than seek.

“Action and suffering tho' he know,He hath not lived, if he lives so.”

Connected with this view of life as “a placid and continuous
whole,” is the principle which will be found here manifested in 86 different modes, and thro' different phases of
event, of the permanence and changelessness of natural laws, and of the
large necessity wherewith they compel life and man. This is the thought
which animates the “Fragment of an ‘Antigone:’”
“The World and the Quietest” has no other scope than
this:—

“Critias, long since, I know,(For fate decreed it so),Long since the world hath set its heart to live.Long since, with credulous zeal,It turns life's mighty wheel:Still doth for laborers send;Who still their labor give.And still expects an end.”—p. 109.

This principle is brought a step futher into the relations of life in
“The Sick King in Bokhara,” the following passage from which
claims to be quoted, not less for its vividness as description, than in
illustration of this thought:—

“In vain, therefore, with wistful eyesGazing up hither, the poor manWho loiters by the high-heaped boothsBelow there in the Registan

“Says: ‘Happy he who lodges there!With silken raiment, store of rice,And, for this drought, all kinds of fruits,Grape-syrup, squares of colored ice,

“‘With cherries served in drifts of
snow.’In vain hath a king power to buildHouses, arcades, enamelled mosques,And to make orchard-closes filled

“Is not more lightened which he feels,If his will be not satisfied:And that it be not from all timeThe law is planted, to abide.”—pp. 47-8.

The author applies this basis of fixity in nature generally to the rules
of man's nature, and avow himself a Quietist. Yet he would not despond, but
contents himself, and waits. In no poem of the volume is this character more
clearly defined and developed than in the sonnets “To a Republican
Friend,” the first of which expresses 87
concurrence in certain broad progressive principles of humanity: to the
second we would call the reader's attention, as to an example of the
author's more firm and serious writing:—

“Yet when I muse on what life is, I seemRather to patience prompted than that proudProspect of hope which France proclaims so loud;France, famed in all great arts, in none supreme:—Seeing this vale, this earth whereon we dream,Is on all sides o'ershadowed by the highUno'erleaped mountains of necessity,Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,When, bursting thro' the net-work superposedBy selfish occupation—plot and plan,Lust, avarice, envy,—liberated man,All difference with his fellow-man composed,Shall be left standing face to face with God.”—p.
57.

In the adjuration entitled “Stagyrus,” already mentioned, he
prays to be set free

“From doubt, where all is double,Where Faiths are built on dust;”

and there seems continually recurring to him a haunting
presage of the unprofitableness of the life, after which men have not
“any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the
sun.” Where he speaks of resignation, after showing how the less
impetuous and self-concentred natures can acquiesce in the order of this
life, even were it to bring them back with an end unattained to the place
whence they set forth; after showing how it is the poet's office to live
rather than to act in and thro' the whole life round about him, he concludes
thus:

“The world in which we live and moveOutlasts aversion, outlasts love.....Nay, and since death, which wipes out man,Finds him with many an unsolved plan,....Still gazing on the ever fullEternal mundane spectacle,This world in which we draw our breathIn some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.....

Enough, we live:—and, if a lifeWith large results so little rife,88Tho' bearable, seem scarcely worthThis pomp of worlds, this pain of birth,Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,The solemn hills around us spread,This stream that falls incessantly,The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky,If I might lend their life a voice,Seem to bear rather than rejoice.And, even could the intemperate prayerMan iterates, while these forbear,For movement, for an ampler sphere,Pierce fate's impenetrable ear,Not milder is the general lotBecause our spirits have forgot,In actions's dizzying eddy whirled,The something that infects the world.”—pp.
125-8.—Resignation.

“Shall we,” he asks, “go hence and find that our vain
dreams are not dead? Shall we follow our vague joys, and the old dead faces,
and the dead hopes?”

He exhorts man to be “in utrumque paratus.” If the
world be the materialized thought of one all-pure, let him, “by lonely
pureness,” seek his way through the colored dream of life up again to
that all-pure fount:—

“But, if the wild unfathered mass no birthIn divine seats hath known;In the blank echoing solitude, if earth,Rocking her obscure body to and fro,Ceases not from all time to heave and groan,Unfruitful oft, and, at her happiest throe,Forms what she forms, alone:”

then man, the only self-conscious being, “seeming sole
to awake,” must, recognizing his brotherhood with this world which
stirs at his feet unknown, confess that he too but seems.

Thus far for the scheme and the creed of the author. Concerning these we
leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.

Before proceeding to a more minute notice of the various poems, we would
observe that a predilection is apparent throughout for antiquity and
classical association; not that strong love which made Shelley, as it were,
the heir of Plato; not that vital grasp of conception which enabled Keats
without, and enables Landor with, the most intimate knowledge of form and
detail, to return to and renew 89 the old
thoughts and beliefs of Greece; still less the mere superficial acquaintance
with names and hackneyed attributes which was once poetry. Of this
conventionalism, however, we have detected two instances; the first, an
allusion to “shy Dian's horn” in “breathless glades”
of the days we live, peculiarly inappropriate in a sonnet addressed
“To George Cruikshank on his Picture of ‘The
Bottle;’” the second a grave call to Memory to bring her
tablets, occurring in, and forming the burden of, a poem strictly personal,
and written for a particular occasion. But the author's partiality is shown,
exclusively of such poems as “Mycerinus” and “The Strayed
Reveller,” where the subjects are taken from antiquity, rather in the
framing than in the ground work, as in the titles “A Modern
Sappho,” “The New Sirens,” “Stagyrus,” and
“In utrumque paratus.” It is Homer and Epictetus and
Sophocles who “prop his mind;” the immortal air which the poet
breathes is “Where Orpheus and where Homer are;” and he
addresses “Fausta” and “Critias.”

There are four narrative poems in the
volume:—“Mycerinus,” “The Strayed Reveller,”
“The Sick King in Bokhara,” and “The Forsaken
Merman.” The first of these, the only one altogether narrative in
form, founded on a passage in the 2nd Book of Herodotus, is the story of the
six years of life portioned to a King of Egypt succeeding a father
“who had loved injustice, and lived long;” and tells how he who
had “loved the good” revels out his “six drops of
time.” He takes leave of his people with bitter words, and goes
out

“To the cool regions of the groves he loved........Here came the king holding high feast at morn,Rose-crowned; and ever, when the sun went down,A hundred lamps beamed in the tranquil gloom,From tree to tree, all thro' the twinkling grove,Revealing all the tumult of the feast,Flushed guests, and golden goblets foamed with wine;While the deep-burnished foliage overheadSplintered the silver arrows of the moon.”—p.
7.

(a daring image, verging towards a conceit, though not absolutely such, and
the only one of that character that has struck us in the volume.)

“So six long years he revelled, night and day:And, when the mirth waxed loudest, with dull soundSometimes from the grove's centre echoes came,To tell his wondering people of their king;90In the still night, across the steaming flats,Mixed with the murmur of the moving Nile.”—pp. 8,
9.

Here a Tennysonian influence is very perceptible, more especially in the
last quotation; and traces of the same will be found in “The Forsaken
Merman.”

In this poem the story is conveyed by allusions and reminiscences whilst
the Merman makes his children call after her who had returned to her own
earth, hearing the Easter bells over the bay, and who is not yet come back
for all the voices calling “Margaret! Margaret!” The piece is
scarcely long enough or sufficiently distinct otherwise than as a whole to
allow of extract; but we cannot but express regret that a poem far from
common-place either in ubject or treatment should conclude with such
sing-song as

———“There dwells a loved one,But cruel is she;She left lonely for everThe kings of the sea.”

“The Strayed Reveller” is written without rhyme—(not
being blank verse, however,)—and not unfrequently, it must be
admitted, without rhythm. Witness the following lines:

“Down the dark valley—I saw.”—“Trembling, I entered; beheld”—“Thro' the islands some divine
bard.”—

Nor are these by any means the only ones that might be cited in proof;
and, indeed, even where there is nothing precisely contrary to rhythm, the
verse might, generally speaking, almost be read as prose. Seldom indeed,
as it appears to us, is the attempt to write without some fixed laws of
metrical construction attended with success; never, perhaps, can it be
considered as the most appropriate embodiment of thought. The fashion has
obtained of late years; but it is a fashion, and will die out. But few
persons will doubt the superiority of the established blank verse, after
reading the following passage, or will hesitate in pronouncing that it ought
to be the rule, instead of the exception, in this poem:

“They see the merchantsOn the Oxus stream:—but careMust visit first them too, and make them pale:Whether, thro' whirling sand,A cloud of desert robber-horse has burstUpon their caravan; or greedy kings,In the walled cities the way passes thro',91Crushed them with tolls; or fever airsOn some great river's margeMown them down, far from home.”—p. 25.

The Reveller, going to join the train of Bacchus in his temple, has
strayed into the house of Circe and has drunk of her cup: he believes that,
while poets can see and know only through participation in endurance, he
shares the power belonging to the gods of seeing “without pain,
without labour;” and has looked over the valley all day long at the
Mœnads and Fauns, and Bacchus, “sometimes, for a moment, passing
through the dark stems.” Apart from the inherent defects of the metre,
there is great beauty of pictorial description in some passages of the poem,
from which the following (where he is speaking of the gods) may be taken as
a specimen:—

From “the Sick King in Bokhara,” we have already quoted at
some length. It is one of the most considerable, and perhaps, as being the
most simple and life-like, the best of the narrative poems. A vizier is
receiving the dues from the cloth merchants, when he is summoned to the
presence of the king, who is ill at ease, by Hussein: “a teller of
sweet tales.” Arrived, Hussein is desired to relate the cause of the
king's sickness; and he tells how, three days since, a certain Moollah came
before the king's path, calling for justice on himself, whom, deemed a fool
or a drunkard, the guards pricked off with their spears, while the king
passed on into the mosque: and how the man came on the morrow with
yesterday's blood-spots on him, and cried out for right. What follows is
told with great singleness and truth: “Thou knowest,” the man
says,

“‘How fierceIn these last day the sun hath burned;That the green water in the tanksIs to a putrid puddle turned;And the canal that from the streamOf Samarcand is brought this wayWastes and runs thinner every day.92“‘Now I at nightfall had gone forthAlone; and, in a darksome placeUnder some mulberry-trees, I foundA little pool; and, in brief space,With all the water that was thereI filled my pitcher, and stole homeUnseen; and, having drink to spare,I hid the can behind the door,And went up on the roof to sleep.

“‘But, in the night, which was with windAnd burning dust, again I creepDown, having fever, for a drink.

“‘Now, meanwhile, had my brethren foundThe water-pitcher, where it stoodBehind the door upon the ground,And called my mother: and they all,As they were thirsty and the nightMost sultry, drained the pitcher there;That they sat with it in my sight,Their lips still wet, when I came down.

“Frowning grim down: ‘Thou wicked king,Most deaf where thou shouldst most give ear;What? Must I howl in the next world,Because thou wilt not listen here?

“‘What, wilt thou pray and get thee grace,And all grace shall to me be grudged?Nay but, I swear, from this thy pathI will not stir till I be judged.’

93“Then they who stood about the kingDrew close together and conferred;Till that the king stood forth and said:‘Before the priests thou shalt be
heard.’

“But, when the Ulema were metAnd the thing heard, they doubted not;But sentenced him, as the law is,To die by stoning on the spot.

“Now the king charged us secretly:‘Stoned must he be: the law stands so:Yet, if he seek to fly, give way;Forbid him not, but let him go.’

“So saying, the king took a stone,And cast it softly: but the man,With a great joy upon his face,Kneeled down, and cried not, neither ran.

“So they whose lot it was cast stones,That they flew thick and bruised him sore:But he praised Allah with loud voice,And remained kneeling as before.

“My lord had covered up his face:But, when one told him, ‘He is dead;’Turning him quickly to go in,‘Bring thou to me his corpse,’ he said.

“And truly, while I speak, oh king,I hear the bearers on the stair.Wilt thou they straightway bring him in?—Ho! enter ye who tarry there.”—pp. 39-43.

The Vizier counsels the king that each man's private grief suffices him,
and that he should not seek increase of it in the griefs of other men. But
he answers him, (this passage we have before quoted,) that the king's lot
and the poor man's is the same, for that neither has his will; and he takes
order that the dead man be buried in his own royal tomb.

We know few poems the style of which is more unaffectedly without labor,
and to the purpose, than this. The metre, however, of the earlier part is
not always quite so uniform and intelligible as might be desired; and we
must protest against the use, for the sake of rhyme, of broke in lieu
of broken, as also of stole for stolen in “the
New Sirens.” While on the subject of style, we may instance, from the
“Fragment of an Antigone,” the following uncouth stanza, which,
at the first reading, hardly appears to be correctly put together:

Perhaps the most perfect and elevated in tone of all these poems is
“The New Sirens.” The author addresses, in imagination, a
company of fair women, one of whose train he had been at morning; but in the
evening he has dreamed under the cedar shade, and seen the same forms
“on shores and sea-washed places,” “With blown tresses,
and with beckoning hands.”

He thinks how at sunrise he had beheld those ladies playing between the
vines; but now their warm locks have fallen down over their arms. He prays
them to speak and shame away his sadness; but there comes only a broken
gleaming from their windows, which “Reels and shivers on the ruffled
gloom.” He asks them whether they have seen the end of all this, the
load of passion and the emptiness of reaction, whether they dare look at
life's latter days,

“When a dreary light is wadingThro' this waste of sunless greens,When the flashing lights are fadingOn the peerless cheek of queens,When the mean shall no more sorrow,And the proudest no more smile;While the dawning of the morrowWidens slowly westward all that while?”

And he implores them to “let fall one tear, and set him
free.” The past was no mere pretence; it was true while it lasted; but
it is gone now, and the East is white with day. Shall they meet again, only
that he may ask whose blank face that is?

“Pluck, pluck cypress, oh pale maidens;Dusk the hall with yew.”

This poem must be read as a whole; for not only would it be difficult to
select particular passages for extraction, but such extracts, if made, would
fail in producing any adequate impression.

We have already quoted so larely from the concluding piece,
“Resignation,” that it may here be necessary to say only that it
is in the form of speech held with “Fausta” in retracing, after
a lapse of ten years, the same way they had once trod with a joyful 95 company. The tone is calm and sustained, not
without touches of familiar truth.

The minor poems comprise eleven sonnets, among which, those “To the
Duke of Wellington, on hearing him mispraised,” and on
“Religious Isolation,” deserve mention; and it is with pleasure
we find one, in the tenor of strong appreciation, written on reading the
Essays of the great American, Emerson. The sonnet for “Butler's
Sermons” is more indistinct, and, as such, less to be approved, in
imagery than is usual with this poet. That “To an Independent Preacher
who preached that we should be in harmony with nature,” seems to call
for some remark. The sonnet ends with these words:

“Man must begin, know this, where nature ends;Nature and man can never be fast friends;Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her
slave.”

Now, as far as this sonnet shows of the discourse which occasioned it, we
cannot see anything so absurd in that discourse; and where the author
confutes the Independent preacher by arguing that

“Nature is cruel; man is sick of blood:Nature is stubborn; man would fain adore:Nature is fickle; man hath need of rest:”

we cannot but think that, by attributing to nature a certain
human degree of qualities, which will not suffice for man, he loses sight of
the point really raised: for is not man's nature only a part of nature? and,
if a part, necessary to the completeness of the whole? and should not the
individual, avoiding a factitious life, order himself in conformity with his
own rule of being? And, indeed, the author himself would converse with the
self-sufficing progress of nature, with its rest in action, as distinguished
from the troublous vexation of man's toiling:—

“Two lessons, Nature, let me learn of thee,Two lessons that in every wind are blown;Two blending duties harmonised in one,Tho' the loud world proclaim their enmity.”—p.
1.

The short lyric poem, “To Fausta” has a Shelleian spirit and
grace in it. & “The Hayswater Boat” seems a little got
up, and is scarcely positive enough. This remark applies also, and in a
stonger degree, to the “Stanzas on a Gipsy Child,” which, and
the “Modern Sappho,” previously mentioned, are the pieces least
to our taste in the volume. There is a something about them of drawing-room
sentimentality; and they might almost, without losing much save in size, be
compressed into poems of the class commonly set to music. It is rather the
basis of thought than the writing of the “Gipsy Child,” 96 which affords cause for objection; nevertheless,
there is a passage in which a comparison is started between this child and a
“Seraph in an alien planet born,”—an idea not new, and
never, as we think, worth much; for it might require some subtlety to show
how a planet capable of producing a Seraph should be alien from that
Seraph.

We may here notice a few cases of looseness, either of thought or of
expression, to be met with in these pages; a point of style to be
particularly looked to when the occurrence or the absence of such forms one
very sensible difference between the first-rate and the second-rate poets of
the present times.

Thus, in the sonnet “Shakspear,” the conclusion says,

“All pains the immortal spirit must endure,All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,Find their sole voice in that victorious
brow;”

whereas a brow's voice remains to be uttered: nor, till the
nature of the victory gained by the brow shall have been pointed out, are we
able to hazard an opinion of the precise value of the epithet.

In the address to George Cruikshank, we find: “Artist, whose hand
with horror winged;” where a similar question arises; and,
returning to the “Gipsy Child,” we are struck with the
unmeaningness of the line: “Who massed round that slight brow these
clouds of doom?”

Nor does the following, from the first of the sonnets, “To a
Republican Friend,” appear reconcileable with any ideas of
appropriateness:

——“While before me flowThe armies of the homeless and unfed.”

It is but right to state that the only instance of the kind we remember
throughout the volume have now been mentioned.

To conclude. Our extracts will enable the reader to judge of this Poet's
style: it is clear and comprehensive, and eschews flowery adornment. No
particular model has been followed, though that general influence which
Tennyson exercises over so many writers of this generation may be traced
here as elsewhere. It may be said that the author has little, if anything,
to unlearn. Care and consistent arrangement, and the necessary subordination
of the parts to the whole, are evident throughout; the reflective, which
appears the more essential form of his thought, does not absorb the due
observation or presentment of the outward facts of nature; and a well-poised
and serious mind shows itself in every page.

Published Monthly, price 1s.

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analytic Reviews of current Literature—particularly of Poetry. Each
number will also contain an Etching; the subject to be taken from the
opening article of the month.

An attempt will be made, both intrinsically and by review, to claim for
Poetry that place to which its present development in the literature of this
country so emphatically entitles it.

The endeavour held in view throughout the writings on Art will be to
encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity of nature; and
also to direct attention, as an auxiliary medium, to the comparatively few
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No. 3. (Price One Shilling.) MARCH, 1850.

With an Etching by F. Madox Brown.

Art and Poetry:

Being Thoughts towards Nature
Conducted principally by Artists.

When whoso merely hath a little thoughtWill plainly think the thought which is in him,—Not imaging another's bright or dim,Not mangling with new words what others taught;When whoso speaks, from having either soughtOr only found,—will speak, not just to skimA shallow surface with words made and trim,But in that very speech the matter brought:Be not too keen to cry—“So this is all!—A thing I might myself have thought as well,But would not say it, for it was not worth!”Ask: “Is this truth?” For is it still to tellThat, be the theme a point or the whole earth,Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

The Subscribers to this Work are respectfully informed that the future
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Also, that a supplementary, or large-sized Etching will occasionally be
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[Illustration: GONERIL: REGAN: LEAR: FOOL: CORDELIA: FRANCE:]

97

Cordelia

“The jewels of our father, with washed eyesCordelia leaves you. I know you what you areAnd, like a sister, am most loth to tellYour faults, as they are named. Use well our father:To your professed bosoms I commit him.But yet, alas!—stood I within his grace,I would prefer him to a better place.So farewell to you both.”

They turn on her and fix their eyes,But cease not passing inward;—oneSneering with lips still curled to lies,Sinuous of body, serpent-wise;Her footfall creeps, and her looks shunThe very thing on which they dwell.

The other, proud, with heavy cheeksAnd massive forehead, where remainsA mark of frowning. If she seeksWith smiles to tame her eyes, or speaks,Her mouth grows wanton: she disdainsThe ground with haughty, measured steps.

The silent years had grown betweenFather and daughter. Always sheHad waited on his will, and beenForemost in doing it,—unseenOften: she wished him not to see,But served him for his sake alone.

He saw her constant love; and, tho'Occasion surely was not scant,Perhaps had never sought to knowHow she could give it wording. SoHis love, not stumbling at a want,Among the three preferred her first.

98Her's is the soul not stubborn, yetAsserting self. The heart was rich;But, questioned, she had rather letMen judge her conscious of a debtThan freely giving: thus, her speechIs love according to her bond.

In France the queen Cordelia hadHer hours well satisfied with love:She loved her king, too, and was glad:And yet, at times, a something sad,May be, was with her, thinking ofThe manner of his life at home.

But this does not usurp her mind.It is but sorrow guessed from farThro' twilight dimly. She must findHer duty elsewhere: not resigned—Because she knows them what they are,Yet scarcely ruffled from her peace.

Cordelia—a name well revered;Synonymous with truth and triedAffection; which but needs be heardTo raise one selfsame thought endearedTo men and women far and wide;A name our mothers taught to us.

Like placid faces which you knewYears since, but not again shall meet;On a sick bed like wind that blew;An excellent thing, best likened toHer own voice, gentle, soft, and sweet;Shakpere's Cordelia;—better thus.

99

Macbeth {9}

{9} It is proper to state that this article was written, and seen,
exactly as it at present stands, by several literary friends of the writer,
a considerable time before the appearance, in the “Westminster
Review,” of a Paper advocating a view of “Macbeth,”
similar to that which is here taken. But although the publication of the
particular view was thus anticipated, nearly all the most forcible arguments
for maintaining it were omitted; and the subject, mixed up, as it was, with
lengthy disquisitions upon very minor topics of Shaksperian acting, &c.
made no very general impression at the time.

The purpose of the following Essay is to demonstrate the existence of a
very important error in the hitherto universally adopted interpretation of
the character of Macbeth. We shall prove that a design of illegitimately
obtaining the crown of Scotland had been conceived by Macbeth, and that it
had been communicated by him to his wife, prior to his first meeting with
the witches, who are commonly supposed to have suggested that
design.

Most persons when they commence the study of the great Shaksperian
dramas, already entertain concerning them a set of traditional notions,
generally originated by the representations, or misrepresentations, of the
theatre, afterwards to become strengthened or confirmed by desultory reading
and corroborative criticism. With this class of persons it was our
misfortune to rank, when we first entered upon the study of
“Macbeth,” fully believing that, in the character of the hero,
Shakspere intended to represent a man whose general rectitude of soul is
drawn on to ruin by the temptations of supernatural agents; temptations
which have the effect of eliciting his latent ambition, and of misdirecting
that ambition when it has been thus elicited.

As long as we continued under this idea, the impression produced upon us
by “Macbeth” came far short of that sense of complete
satisfaction which we were accustomed to receive from every other of the
higher works of Shakspere. But, upon deeper study, the view now proposed
suggested itself, and seemed to render every thing as it should be. We say
that this view suggested itself, because it did not arise directly
from any one of the numerous passages which can be quoted in its support; it
originated in a general feeling of what seemed to be wanting to the
completion of the entire effect; a circumstance which has been stated at
length from the persuasion that it is of itself no mean presumption in
favour of the opinion which it is the aim of this paper to establish.

Let us proceed to examine the validity of a position, which, 100 if it deserves any attention at all, may certainly
claim an investigation more than usually minute. We shall commence by giving
an analysis of the first Act, wherein will be considered, successively,
every passage which may appear to bear either way upon the point in
question.

The inferences which we believe to be deducible from the first scene can
be profitably employed only in conjunction with those to be discovered in
the third. Our analysis must, therefore, be entered upon by an attempt to
ascertain the true character of the impressions which it was the desire of
Shakspere to convey by the second.

This scene is almost exclusively occupied with the narrations of the
“bleeding Soldier,” and of Rosse. These narrations are
constructed with the express purpose of vividly setting forth the personal
valour of Duncan's generals, “Macbeth and Banquo.” Let us
consider what is the maximum worth which the words of Shakspere will,
at this period of the play, allow us to attribute to the moral character of
the hero:—a point, let it be observed, of first-rate importance to the
present argument. We find Macbeth, in this scene, designated by various
epithets, all of which, either directly or indirectly, arise from
feelings of admiration created by his courageous conduct in the war in which
he is supposed to have been engaged. “Brave” and “Noble
Macbeth,” “Bellona's Bridegroom,” “Valiant
Cousin,” and “Worthy Gentleman,” are the general titles by
which he is here spoken of; but none of them afford any positive clue
whatever to his moral character. Nor is any such clue supplied by the
scenes in which he is presently received by the messengers of Duncan, and
afterwards received and lauded by Duncan himself. Macbeth's moral character,
up to the development of his criminal hopes, remains strictly
negative. Hence it is difficult to fathom the meaning of those
critics, (A. Schlegel at their head), who have over and over again made the
ruin of Macbeth's “so many noble qualities”{10} the subject of
their comment.

In the third scene we have the meeting of the witches, the announcement
of whose intention to re-assemble upon the heath, there to meet with
Macbeth, forms the certainly most obvious, though not perhaps,
altogether the most important, aim of the short scene by which the tragedy
is opened. An enquiry of much interest here suggests itself. Did Shakspere
intend that in his tragedy of “Macbeth” the witches should
figure as originators of gratuitous destruction, in direct opposition to the
traditional, and 101 even proverbial, character
of the genus? By that character such personages have been denied the
possession of any influence whatever over the untainted soul. Has Shakspere
in this instance re tained, or has he abolished, the chief of those
characteristics which have been universally attributed to the beings in
question?

We think that he has retained it, and for the following reasons: Whenever
Shakspere has elsewhere embodied superstitions, he has treated them as
direct and unalterable facts of human nature; and this he has done
because he was too profound a philosopher to be capable of regarding genuine
superstition as the product of random spectra of the fancy, having absolute
darkness for the prime condition of their being, instead of eeing in it
rather the zodiacal light of truth, the concomitant of the uprising, and of
the setting of the truth, and a partaker in its essence. Again, Shakspere
has in this very play devoted a considerable space to the purpose of
suggesting the self-same trait of character now under discussion, and this
he appears to have done with the express intent of guarding against a
mistake, the probability of the occurrence of which he foresaw, but which,
for reasons connected with the construction of the play, he could not hope
otherwise to obviate.

We allude to the introductory portion of the present scene. One sister,
we learn, has just returned from killing swine; another breathes
forth vengeance against a sailor, on account of the uncharitable act of his
wife; but “his bark cannot be lost,” though it may be
“tempest tossed.” The last words are scarcely uttered before the
confabulation is interrupted by the approach of Macbeth, to whom they have
as yet made no direct allusion whatever, throughout the whole of this
opening passage, consisting in all of some five and twenty lines. Now this
were a digression which would be a complete anomaly, having place, as it is
supposed to have, at this early stage of one of the most consummate of the
tragedies of Shakspere. We may be sure, therefore, that it is the chief
object of these lines to impress the reader beforehand with an idea that, in
the mind of Macbeth, there already exist sure foundations for that great
superstructure of evil, to the erection of which, the “metaphysical
aid” of the weird sisters is now to be offered. An opinion
which is further supported by the reproaches of Hecate, who, afterwards,
referring to what occurs in this scene, exclaims,

“All you have doneHath been but for a wayward son,Spiteful, and wrathful, who, as others do,Loves for his own end, not for you.”

102 Words which seem to relate to ends loved
of Macbeth before the witches had spurred him on to their acquirement.

The fact that in the old chronicle, from which the plot of the play is
taken, the machinations of the witches are not assumed to be
un-gratuitous, cannot be employed as an argument against our
position. In history the sisters figure in the capacity of prophets
merely. There we have no previous announcement of their intention
“to meet with Macbeth.” But in Shakspere they are invested with
all other of their superstitional attributes, in order that they may become
the evil instruments of holy vengeance upon evil; of that most terrible of
vengeance which punishes sin, after it has exceeded certain bounds, by
deepening it.

Proceeding now with our analysis, upon the entrance of Macbeth and
Banquo, the witches wind up their hurried charm. They are first perceived by
Banquo. To his questions the sisters refuse to reply; but, at the command of
Macbeth, they immediately speak, and forthwith utter the prophecy which
seals the fate of Duncan.

Now, assuming the truth of our view, what would be the natural behaviour
of Macbeth upon coming into sudden contact with beings who appear to hold
intelligence of his most secret thoughts; and upon hearing those thoughts,
as it were, spoken aloud in the presence of a third party? His behaviour
would be precisely that which is implied by the question of Banquo.

“Good sir, why do you start and seem to fearThings which do sound so fair?”

If, on the other hand, our view is not true, why, seeing that
their characters are in the abstract so much alike, why does the present
conduct of Macbeth differ from that of Banquo, when the witches direct their
prophecies to him? Why has Shakspere altered the narrative of Holinshed,
without the prospect of gaining any advantage commensurate to the licence
taken in making that alteration? These are the words of the old chronicle:
“This (the recontre with the witches) was reputed at the first but
some vain fantastical illusion by Macbeth and Banquo, insomuch that Banquo
would call Macbeth in jest king of Scotland; and Macbeth again would call
him in jest likewise the father of many kings.” Now it was the
invariable practice of Shakspere to give facts or traditions just as he
found them, whenever the introduction of those facts or traditions was not
totally irreconcileable with the tone of his conception. How then (should we
still receive the notion which we are now combating) are we to account for
his anomalous practice in this particular case?

103

When the witches are about to vanish, Macbeth attempts to delay their
departure, exclaiming,

“Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:By Sinol's death, I know I am thane of Glamis;But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,A prosperous gentleman; and, to be kingStands not within the prospect of belief,No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whenceYou owe this strange intelligence?”

“To be king stands not within the prospect of belief, no more
than to be Cawdor.” No! it naturally stands much less
within the prospect of belief. Here the mind of Macbeth, having long been
accustomed to the nurture of its “royal hope,” conceives that it
is uttering a very suitable hyperbole of comparison. Had that mind been
hitherto an honest mind the word “Cawdor” would have occupied
the place of “king,” “king” that of
“Cawdor.” Observe too the general character of this speech:
Although the coincidence of the principal prophecy with his own thoughts has
so strong an effect upon Macbeth as to induce him to, at once, pronounce the
words of the sisters, “intelligence;” he nevertheless affects to
treat that prophecy as completely secondary to the other in the strength of
its claims upon his consideration. This is a piece of over-cautious
hypocrisy which is fully in keeping with the tenor of his conduct throughout
the rest of the tragedy.

No sooner have the witches vanished than Banquo begins to doubt whether
there had been “such things there as they did speak about.” This
is the natural incredulity of a free mind so circumstanced. On the other
hand, Macbeth, whose manner, since the first announcement of the sisters,
has been that of a man in a reverie, makes no doubt whatever of the
reality of their appearance, nor does he reply to the expressed scepticism
of Banquo, but abruptly exclaims, “your children shall be
kings.” To this Banquo answers, “you shall be king.”
“And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?” continues Macbeth.
Now, what, in either case, is the condition of mind which can have given
rise to this part of the dialogue? It is, we imagine, sufficiently evident
that the playful words of Banquo were suggested to Shakspere by the
narration of Holinshed; but how are we to account for those of Macbeth,
otherwise than by supposing that the question of the crown is now settled in
his mind by the coincidence of the principal prediction, with the shapings
of his own thoughts, and that he is at this moment occupied with the
wholly unanticipated revelations, touching the thaneship of Cawdor,
and the future possession of the throne by the offspring of Banquo?

104

Now comes the fulfilment of the first prophecy. Mark the words of these
men, upon receiving the announcement of Rosse:

“Banquo. What! can the devil speak truth?Macbeth. The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress meIn borrowed robes?”

Mark how that reception is in either case precisely the reverse of
that given to the prophecy itself. Here Banquo starts. But what
is here done for Banquo, by the coincidence of the prophecy with the
truth, has been already done for Macbeth, by the coincidence of his
thought with the prophecy. Accordingly, Macbeth is calm enough to play
the hypocrite, when he must otherwise have experienced surprise far
greater than that of Banquo, because he is much more nearly concerned in
the source of it. So far indeed from being overcome with astonishment,
Macbeth still continues to dwell upon the prophecy, by which his peace
of mind is afterwards constantly disturbed,

“Do you not hope your children shall be kings,When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to mePromised no less to them?”

Banquo's reply to this question has been one of the chief sources of the
interpretation, the error of which we are now endeavouring to expose. He
says,

“That, trusted home,Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,Besides the thane of Cawdor. But, 'tis strange;And often times, to win us to our harm,The instruments of darkness tell us truths,Win us with honest trifles, to betray usIn deepest consequence.”

Now, these words have usually been considered to afford the clue to the
entire nature and extent of the supernatural influence brought into
play upon the present tragedy; whereas, in truth, all that they express is a
natural suspicion, called up in the mind of Banquo, by Macbeth's remarkable
deportment, that such is the character of the influence which is at
this moment being exerted upon the soul of the man to whom he therefore
thinks proper to hint the warning they contain.

The soliloquy which immediately follows the above passage is particularly
worthy of comment:

“This supernatural solicitingCannot be ill; cannot be good:—if ill,Why hath it given me earnest of success,105Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,And make my seated heart knock at my ribsAgainst the use of nature? Present fearsAre less than horrible imaginings.My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,Shakes so my single state of man, that functionIs smothered in surmise, and nothing is,But what is not.”

The early portion of this passage assuredly indicates that Macbeth
regards the communications of the witches merely in the light of an
invitation to the carrying out of a design pre-existent in his own mind. He
thinks that the spontaneous fulfilment of the chief prophecy is in no
way probable; the consummation of the lesser prophecy being held by him, but
as an “earnest of success” to his own efforts in consummating
the greater. From the latter portion of this soliloquy we learn the real
extent to which “metaphysical aid” is implicated in bringing
about the crime of Duncan's murder. It serves to assure Macbeth that
that is the “nearest way” to the attainment of his
wishes;—a way to the suggestion of which he now, for the first time,
“yields,” because the chances of its failure have been
infinitely lessened by the “earnest of success” which he has
just received.

After the above soliloquy Macbeth breaks the long pause, implied in
Banquo's words, “Look how our partner's rapt,” by
exclaiming,

Which is a very logical conclusion; but one at which he would long ago
have arrived, had “soliciting” meant “suggestion,”
as most people suppose it to have done; or at least, under those
circumstances, he would have been satisfied with that conclusion, instead of
immediately afterwards changing it, as we see that he has done, when he
adds,

“Come what come may,Time and the hour runs through the roughest
day!”

With that the third scene closes; the parties engaged in it proceeding
forthwith to the palace of Duncan at Fores.

Towards the conclusion of the fourth scene, Duncan names his successor in
the realm of Scotland. After this Macbeth hastily departs, to inform his
wife of the king's proposed visit to their castle, at Inverness. The last
words of Macbeth are the following,

106“The prince of Cumberland!—That is a step,On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap.For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!Let not light see my black and deep desires;The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”

These lines are equally remarkable for a tone of settled assurance as to
the fulfilment of the speaker's royal hope, and for an entire absence of any
expression of reliance upon the power of the witches,—the hitherto
supposed originators of that hope,—in aiding its consummation. It is
particularly noticeable that Macbeth should make no reference whatever, not
even in thought, (that is, in soliloquy) to any supernatural agency during
the long period intervening between the fulfilment of the two prophecies. Is
it probable that this would have been the case had Shakspere intended that
such an agency should be understood to have been the first motive and
mainspring of that deed, which, with all its accompanying struggles of
conscience, he has so minutely pictured to us as having been, during that
period, enacted? But besides this negative argument, we have a positive one
for his non-reliance upon their promises in the fact that he attempts to
outwit them by the murder of Fleance even after the fulfilment of the second
prophecy.

The fifth scene opens with Lady Macbeth's perusal of her husband's
narration of his interview with the witches. The order of our investigation
requires the postponement of comment upon the contents of this letter. We
leave it for the present, merely cautioning the reader against taking up any
hasty objections to a very important clause in the enunciation of our view
by reminding him that, contrary to Shakspere's custom in ordinary cases, we
are made acquainted only with a portion of the missive in question.
Let us then proceed to consider the soliloquy which immediately follows the
perusal of this letter:

“I do fear thy nature.It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;Art not without ambition; but withoutThe illness should attend it. That thou wouldst highly,That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play falseAnd yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,That which cries this thou must do if thou have it,And that which rather thou dost fear to do,Thou wishest should be undone.”

107

It is vividly apparent that this passage indicates a knowledge of the
character it depicts, which is far too intimate to allow of its being other
than a direct inference from facts connected with previous
communications upon similar topics between the speaker and the writer:
unless, indeed, we assume that in this instance Shakspere has notably
departed from his usual principles of characterization, in having invested
Lady Macbeth with an amount of philosophical acuteness, and a faculty of
deduction, much beyond those pretended to by any other of the female
creations of the same author.

The above passage is interrupted by the announcement of the approach of
Duncan. Observe Lady Macbeth's behaviour upon receiving it. She immediately
determines upon what is to be done, and all without (are we to suppose?) in
any way consulting, or being aware of, the wishes or inclinations of her
husband! Observe too, that neither does she appear to regard the
witches' prophecies as anything more than an invitation, and holding forth
of “metaphysical aid” to the carrying out of an
independent project. That this should be the case in both instances vastly
strengthens the argument legitimately deducible from each.

At the conclusion of the passage which called for the last remark,
Macbeth, after a long and eventful period of absence, let it be recollected,
enters to a wife who, we will for a moment suppose, is completely ignorant
of the character of her husband's recent cogitations. These are the first
words which pass between them,

“Macbeth. My dearest love,Duncan comes here to-night.

L. Macbeth. And when goes hence?

Macbeth. To-morrow, as he purposes.

L. Macbeth. Oh! neverShall sun that morrow see!Your face, my thane, is as a book where menMay read strange matters:—to beguile the time,Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,But be the serpent under it. He that's comingMust be provided for; and you shall putThis night's great business into my dispatch,Which shall to all our nights and days to comeGive solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Macbeth. We will speak further.”

Are these words those which would naturally arise from the situation at
present, by common consent, attributed to the speakers 108 of them? That is to say a situation in which each
speaker is totally ignorant of the sentiments pre-existent in the mind of
the other. Are the words, “we will speak further,” those
which might in nature form the whole and sole reply made by a man to his
wife's completely unexpected anticipation of his own fearful purposes? If
not, if few or none of these lines, thus interpreted, will satisfy the
reader's feeling for common truth, does not the view which we have adopted
invest them with new light, and improved, or perfected meaning?

The next scene represents the arrival of Duncan at Inverness, and
contains nothing which bears either way upon the point in question.
Proceeding, therefore, to the seventh and last scene of the first act we
come to what we cannot but consider to be proof positive of the opinion
under examination. We shall transcribe at length the portion of this scene
containing that proof; having first reminded the reader that a few hours at
most can have elapsed between the arrival of Macbeth, and the period at
which the words, now to be quoted, are uttered.

“Lady Macbeth. Was the hope drunk,Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since,And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this time,Such I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valour,As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting, I dare not, wait upon, I would,Like the poor cat in the adage?

Macbeth. Prithee, peace:I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.

Lady Macbeth. What beast was't thenThat made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it, then you were a man,And to be more than what you were you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both.They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:109I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums,And dashed the brains out, had I so swornAs you have done to this.”

With respect to the above lines, let us observe that, the words,
“nor time nor place did then adhere,” render it evident that
they hold reference to something which passed before Duncan had signified
his intention of visiting the castle of Macbeth. Consequently the words of
Lady Macbeth can have no reference to the previous communication of any
definite intention, on the part of her husband, to murder the king; because,
not long before, she professes herself aware that Macbeth's nature is
“too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest
way;” indeed, she has every reason to suppose that she herself has
been the means of breaking that enterprise to him, though, in truth,
the crime had already, as we have seen, suggested itself to his thought,
“whose murder was as yet fantastical.”

Again the whole tenor of this passage shows that it refers to verbal
communication between them. But no such communication can have taken
place since Macbeth's rencontre with the witches; for, besides that he
is, immediately after that recontre, conducted to the presence of the king,
who there signifies an intention of proceeding directly to Macbeth's castle,
such a communication would have rendered the contents of the letter to Lady
Macbeth completely superfluous. What then are we to conclude concerning
these problematical lines? First begging the reader to bear in mind the tone
of sophistry which has been observed by Schlegel to pervade, and which is
indeed manifest throughout the persuasions of Lady Macbeth, we answer, that
she wilfully confounds her husband's,—probably vague and
unplanned—“enterprise” of obtaining the crown, with that
“nearest way” to which she now urges him; but, at the same time,
she obscurely individualizes the separate purposes in the words, “and
to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the
man.”

It is a fact which is highly interesting in itself, and one which
strongly impeaches the candour of the majority of Shakspere's commentators,
that the impenetrable obscurity which must have pervaded the whole of this
passage should never have been made the subject of remark. As far as we can
remember, not a word has been said upon the matter in any one of the many
superfluously explanatory editions of our dramatist's productions. Censures
have been repeatedly lavished upon minor cases of obscurity, none upon this.
In the former case the fault has been felt to be Shakspere's, 110 for it has usually existed in the expression; but in
the latter the language is unexceptional, and the avowal of obscurity might
imply the possibility of misapprehension or stupidity upon the part of the
avower.

Probably the only considerable obstacle likely to act against the general
adoption of those views will be the doubt, whether so important a feature of
this consummate tragedy can have been left by Shakspere so obscurely
expressed as to be capable of remaining totally unperceived during upwards
of two centuries, within which period the genius of a Coleridge and of a
Schlegel has been applied to its interpretation. Should this objection be
brought forward, we reply, in the first place, that the objector is
‘begging’ his question in assuming that the feature under
examination has remained totally unperceived. Coleridge by way of
comment upon these words of Banquo,

“Good sir, why do you stand, and seem to fearThings that do sound so fair?”

writes thus: “The general idea is all that can be
required of a poet—not a scholastic logical consistency in all the
parts, so as to meet metaphysical objectors. * * * * * * * * How strictly
true to nature it is, that Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our
notice to the effects produced in Macbeth's mind, rendered temptible by
previous dalliance with ambitious thoughts.” Here Coleridge denies
the necessity of “logical consistency, so as to meet
metaphysical objectors,” although he has, throughout his criticisms
upon Shakspere, endeavored, and nearly always with success, to prove the
existence of that consistency; and so strongly has he felt the want
of it here, that he has, in order to satisfy himself, assumed that
“previous dalliance with ambitious thoughts,” whose existence it
has been our object to prove.

But, putting Coleridge's imperfect perception of the truth out of the
question, surely nothing can be easier than to believe that for the
belief in which we have so many precedents. How many beauties, lost upon
Dryden, were perceived by Johnson; How many, hidden to Johnson and his
cotemporaries, have been brought to light by Schlegel and by Coleridge.

111

Repining

She sat alway thro' the long daySpinning the weary thread away;And ever said in undertone:“Come, that I be no more alone.”

From early dawn to set of sunWorking, her task was still undone;And the long thread seemed to increaseEven while she spun and did not cease.She heard the gentle turtle-doveTell to its mate a tale of love;She saw the glancing swallows fly,Ever a social company;She knew each bird upon its nestHad cheering songs to bring it rest;None lived alone save only she;—The wheel went round more wearily;She wept and said in undertone:“Come, that I be no more alone.”

Day followed day, and still she sighedFor love, and was not satisfied;Until one night, when the moonlightTurned all the trees to silver white,She heard, what ne'er she heard before,A steady hand undo the door.The nightingale since set of sunHer throbbing music had not done,And she had listened silently;But now the wind had changed, and sheHeard the sweet song no more, but heardBeside her bed a whispered word:“Damsel, rise up; be not afraid;For I am come at last,” it said.

She trembled, tho' the voice was mild;She trembled like a frightened child;—Till she looked up, and then she sawThe unknown speaker without awe.He seemed a fair young man, his eyesBeaming with serious charities;112His cheek was white, but hardly pale;And a dim glory like a veilHovered about his head, and shoneThro' the whole room till night was gone.

So her fear fled; and then she said,Leaning upon her quiet bed:“Now thou art come, I prithee stay,That I may see thee in the day,And learn to know thy voice, and hearIt evermore calling me near.”

She bound her hair up from the floor,And passed in silence from the door.

So they went forth together, heHelping her forward tenderly.The hedges bowed beneath his hand;Forth from the streams came the dry landAs they passed over; evermoreThe pallid moonbeams shone before;And the wind hushed, and nothing stirred;Not even a solitary bird,Scared by their footsteps, fluttered byWhere aspen-trees stood steadily.

As they went on, at length a soundCame trembling on the air around;The undistinguishable humOf life, voices that go and comeOf busy men, and the child's sweetHigh laugh, and noise of trampling feet.

Then he said: “Wilt thou go and see?”And she made answer joyfully;“The noise of life, of human life,Of dear communion without strife,Of converse held 'twixt friend and friend;Is it not here our path shall end?”He led her on a little wayUntil they reached a hillock: “Stay.”

113It was a village in a plain.High mountains screened it from the rainAnd stormy wind; and nigh at handA bubbling streamlet flowed, o'er sandPebbly and fine, and sent life upGreen succous stalk and flower-cup.

Gradually, day's harbinger,A chilly wind began to stir.It seemed a gentle powerless breezeThat scarcely rustled thro' the trees;And yet it touched the mountain's headAnd the paths man might never tread.But hearken: in the quiet weatherDo all the streams flow down together?—No, 'tis a sound more terribleThan tho' a thousand rivers fell.The everlasting ice and snowWere loosened then, but not to flow;—With a loud crash like solid thunderThe avalanche came, burying underThe village; turning life and breathAnd rest and joy and plans to death.

“Oh! let us fly, for pity fly;Let us go hence, friend, thou and I.There must be many regions yetWhere these things make not desolate.”He looked upon her seriously;Then said: “Arise and follow me.”The path that lay before them wasNigh covered over with long grass;And many slimy things and slowTrailed on between the roots below.The moon looked dimmer than before;And shadowy cloudlets floating o'erIts face sometimes quite hid its light,And filled the skies with deeper night.

At last, as they went on, the noiseWas heard of the sea's mighty voice;And soon the ocean could be seenIn its long restlessness serene.114Upon its breast a vessel rodeThat drowsily appeared to nodAs the great billows rose and fell,And swelled to sink, and sank to swell.

Meanwhile the strong wind had come forthFrom the chill regions of the North,The mighty wind invisible.And the low waves began to swell;And the sky darkened overhead;And the moon once looked forth, then fledBehind dark clouds; while here and thereThe lightning shone out in the air;And the approaching thunder rolledWith angry pealings manifold.How many vows were made, and prayersThat in safe times were cold and scarce.Still all availed not; and at lengthThe waves arose in all their strength,And fought against the ship, and filledThe ship. Then were the clouds unsealed,And the rain hurried forth, and beatOn every side and over it.

Some clung together, and some keptA long stern silence, and some wept.Many half-crazed looked on in wonderAs the strong timbers rent asunder;Friends forgot friends, foes fled to foes;—And still the water rose and rose.

“Ah woe is me! Whom I have seenAre now as tho' they had not been.In the earth there is room for birth,And there are graves enough in earth;Why should the cold sea, tempest-torn,Bury those whom it hath not borne?”

He answered not, and they went on.The glory of the heavens was gone;The moon gleamed not nor any star;Cold winds were rustling near and far,And from the trees the dry leaves fellWith a sad sound unspeakable.

115The air was cold; till from the SouthA gust blew hot, like sudden drouth,Into their faces; and a lightGlowing and red, shone thro' the night.

A mighty city full of flameAnd death and sounds without a name.Amid the black and blinding smoke,The people, as one man, awoke.Oh! happy they who yesterdayOn the long journey went away;Whose pallid lips, smiling and chill,While the flames scorch them smile on still;Who murmur not; who tremble notWhen the bier crackles fiery hot;Who, dying, said in love's increase:“Lord, let thy servant part in peace.”

Those in the town could see and hearA shaded river flowing near;The broad deep bed could hardly holdIts plenteous waters calm and cold.Was flame-wrapped all the city wall,The city gates were flame-wrapped all.

What was man's strength, what puissance then?Women were mighty as strong men.Some knelt in prayer, believing still,Resigned unto a righteous will,Bowing beneath the chastening rod,Lost to the world, but found of God.Some prayed for friend, for child, for wife;Some prayed for faith; some prayed for life;While some, proud even in death, hope gone,Steadfast and still, stood looking on.

“Death—death—oh! let us fly from death;Where'er we go it followeth;All these are dead; and we aloneRemain to weep for what is gone.What is this thing? thus hurriedlyTo pass into eternity;To leave the earth so full of mirth;To lose the profit of our birth;To die and be no more; to cease,Having numbness that is not peace.116Let us go hence; and, even if thusDeath everywhere must go with us,Let us not see the change, but seeThose who have been or still shall be.”

He sighed and they went on together;Beneath their feet did the grass wither;Across the heaven high overheadDark misty clouds floated and fled;And in their bosom was the thunder,And angry lightnings flashed out under,Forked and red and menacing;Far off the wind was muttering;It seemed to tell, not understood,Strange secrets to the listening wood.

Upon its wings it bore the scentOf blood of a great armament:Then saw they how on either sideFields were down-trodden far and wide.That morning at the break of dayTwo nations had gone forth to slay.

As a man soweth so he reaps.The field was full of bleeding heaps;Ghastly corpses of men and horsesThat met death at a thousand sources;Cold limbs and putrifying flesh;Long love-locks clotted to a meshThat stifled; stiffened mouths beneathStaring eyes that had looked on death.

But these were dead: these felt no moreThe anguish of the wounds they bore.Behold, they shall not sigh again,Nor justly fear, nor hope in vain.What if none wept above them?—isThe sleeper less at rest for this?Is not the young child's slumber sweetWhen no man watcheth over it?These had deep calm; but all aroundThere was a deadly smothered sound,The choking cry of agonyFrom wounded men who could not die;117Who watched the black wing of the ravenRise like a cloud 'twixt them and heaven,And in the distance flying fastBeheld the eagle come at last.

She knelt down in her agony:“O Lord, it is enough,” said she:“My heart's prayer putteth me to shame;“Let me return to whence I came.“Thou for who love's sake didst reprove,“Forgive me for the sake of love.”

Sweet Death

The sweetest blossoms die.And so it was that, going day by dayUnto the church to praise and pray,And crossing the green church-yard thoughtfully,I saw how on the graves the flowersShed their fresh leaves in showers;And how their perfume rose up to the skyBefore it passed away.

The youngest blossoms die.They die, and fall, and nourish the rich earthFrom which they lately had their birth.Sweet life: but sweeter death that passeth by,And is as tho' it had not been.All colors turn to green:The bright hues vanish, and the odours fly;The grass hath lasting worth.

And youth and beauty die.So be it, O my God, thou God of truth.Better than beauty and than youthAre saints and angels, a glad company:And Thou, O lord, our Rest and Ease,Are better far than these.Why should we shrink from our full harvest? whyPrefer to glean with Ruth?

118

The Subject in Art No. II

Resuming a consideration of the subject-matter suitable in painting and
sculpture, it is necessary to repeat those premises, and to re-establish
those principles which were advanced or elicited in the first number of this
essay.

It was premised then that works of Fine Art affect the beholder in the
same ratio as the natural prototypes of those works would affect him;
and not in proportion to the difficulties overcome in the artificial
representation of those prototypes. Not contending, meanwhile, that the
picture painted by the hand of the artist, and then by the hand of nature on
the eye of the beholder, is, in amount, the same as the picture painted
there by nature alone; but disregarding, as irrelevant to this
investigation, all concomitants of fine art wherein they involve an
ulterior impression as to the relative merits of the work by the amount of
its success, and, for a like reason, disregarding all emotions and
impressions which are not the immediate and proximate result of an excitor
influence of, or pertaining to, the things artificial, as a bona fide
equivalent of the things natural.

Or the premises may be practically stated thus:—(1st.) When one
looks on a certain painting or sculpture for the first time, the first
notion is that of a painting or sculpture. (2nd.) In the next place, while
the objects depicted are revealing themselves as real objects, the notion of
a painting or sculpture has elapsed, and, in its place, there are emotions,
passions, actions (moral or intellectual) according in sort and degree to
the heart or mind-moving influence of the objects represented. (3rd.)
Finally, there is a notion of a painting or sculpture, and a judgment or
sentiment commensurate with the estimated merits of the work.—The
second statement gives the premised conditions under which Fine Art is about
to be treated: the 3rd statement exemplifies a phase in the being of Fine
Art under which it is never to be considered: and furthermore, whilst the
mental reflection last mentioned (the judgment on the work) is being made,
it may occur that certain objects, most difficult of artistic execution, had
been most successfully handled: the merits of introducing such objects, in
such a manner, are the merits of those concomitants mentioned as equally
without the scope of consideration.

Thus much for the premises—next to the re-establishment of
principles.

119

1st. The principle was elicited, that Fine Art should regard the general
happiness of man, by addressing those of his attributes which are
peculiarly human, by exciting the activity of his rational and
benevolent powers; and thereafter:—2nd, that the Subject in Art should
be drawn from objects which so address and excite him; and 3rd, as objects
so exciting the mental activity may (in proportion to the mental capacity)
excite it to any amount, and so possibly in the highest degree (the function
of Fine Art being mental excitement, and that of High Art being the
highest mental excitement) that all objects so exciting mental
activity and emotion in the highest degree, may afford subjects for High
Art.

Having thus re-stated the premises and principles already deduced, let us
proceed to enquire into the propriety of selecting the Subject from the past
or the present time; which enquiry resolves itself fundamentally into the
analysis of objects and incidents experienced immediately by the senses, or
acquired by mental education.

Here then we have to explore the specific difference between the
incidents and objects of to-day, as exposed to our daily observation, and
the incidents and objects of time past, as bequeathed to us by history,
poetry, or tradition.

In the first place, there is, no doubt, a considerable real
difference between the things of to-day and those of times past: but as all
former times, their incidents and objects differ amongst themselves, this
can hardly be the cause of the specific difference sought for—a
difference between our share of things past and things present. This real,
but not specific difference then, however admitted, shall not be considered
here.

It is obvious, in the meanwhile, that all which we have of the past is
stamped with an impress of mental assimilation: an impress it has received
from the mind of the author who has garnered it up, and disposed it in that
form and order which ensure it acceptance with posterity. For let a writer
of history be as matter of fact as he will, the very order and
classification of events will save us the trouble of confusion, and render
them graspable, and more capable of assimilation, than is the raw material
of every-day experience. In fact the work of mind is begun, the key of
intelligence is given, and we have only to continue the process. Where the
vehicle for the transmission of things past is poetry, then we have them
presented in that succession, and with that modification of force, a
resilient plasticity, now advancing, now recoiling, insinuating and
grappling, that ere this material and mental warfare is over, we find the
facts thus transmitted are incorporated with our psychical 120 existence. And in tradition is it
otherwise?—Every man tells the tale in his own way; and the merits of
the story itself, or the person who tells it, or his way of telling,
procures it a lodgment in the mind of the hearer, whence it is ever ready to
start up and claim kindred with some external excitement.

Thus it is the luck of all things of the past to come down to us with
some poetry about them; while from those of diurnal experience we must
extract this poetry ourselves: and although all good men are, more or less,
poets, they are passive or recipient poets; while the active or donative
poet caters for them what they fail to collect. For let a poet walk through
London, and he shall see a succession of incidents, suggesting some moral
beauty by a contrast of times with times, unfolding some principle of
nature, developing some attribute of man, or pointing to some glory in The
Maker: while the man who walked behind him saw nothing but shops and
pavement, and coats and faces; neither did he hear the aggregated turmoil of
a city of nations, nor the noisy exponents of various desires, appetites and
pursuits: each pulsing tremour of the atmosphere was not struck into it by a
subtile ineffable something willed forcibly out of a cranium: neither did he
see the driver of horses holding a rod of light in his eye and feeling his
way, in a world he was rushing through, by the motion of the end of that
rod:—he only saw the wheels in motion, and heard the rattle on the
stones; and yet this man stopped twice at a book shop to buy ‘a
Tennyson,’ or a ‘Browning's Sordello.’ Now this man might
have seen all that the poet saw; he walked through the same streets: yet the
poet goes home and writes a poem; and he who failed to feel the poetry of
the things themselves detects it readily in the poet's version. Then why, it
is asked, does not this man, schooled by the poet's example, look out for
himself for the future, and so find attractions in things of to-day? He does
so to a trifling extent, but the reason why he does so rarely will be found
in the former demonstration.

It was shown how bygone objects and incidents come down to us invested in
peculiar attractions: this the poet knows and feels, and the probabilities
are that he transferred the incidents of to-day, with all their poetical and
moral suggestions, to the romantic long-ago, partly from a feeling of
prudence, and partly that he himself was under this spell of antiquity, How
many a Troubadour, who recited tales of king Arthur, had his incidents
furnished him by the events of his own time! And thus it is the many are
attracted to the poetry of things past, yet impervious to the poetry of
things present. But this retrograde movement in the poet, painter, or 121 sculptor (except in certain cases as will
subsequently appear), if not the result of necessity, is an error in
judgment or a culpable dishonesty. For why should he not acknowledge the
source of his inspiration, that others may drink of the same spring with
himself; and perhaps drink deeper and a clearer draught?—For the water
is unebbing and exhaustless, and fills the more it is emptied: why then
should it be filtered through his tank where he can teach men to
drink it at the fountain?

If, as every poet, every painter, every sculptor will acknowledge, his
best and most original ideas are derived from his own times: if his great
lessonings to piety, truth, charity, love, honor, honesty, gallantry,
generosity, courage, are derived from the same source; why transfer them to
distant periods, and make them not things of to-day? Why teach us to
revere the saints of old, and not our own family-worshippers? Why to admire
the lance-armed knight, and not the patience-armed hero of misfortune? Why
to draw a sword we do not wear to aid and oppressed damsel, and not a purse
which we do wear to rescue an erring one? Why to worship a martyred St.
Agatha, and not a sick woman attending the sick? Why teach us to honor an
Aristides or a Regulus, and not one who pays an equitable, though to him
ruinous, tax without a railing accusation? And why not teach us to help what
the laws cannot help?—Why teach us to hate a Nero or an Appius, and
not an underselling oppressor of workmen and betrayer of women and children?
Why to love a Ladie in bower, and not a wife's fireside? Why paint or
poetically depict the horrible race of Ogres and Giants, and not show Giant
Despair dressed in that modern habit he walks the streets in? Why teach men
what were great and good deeds in the old time, neglecting to show them any
good for themselves?—Till these questions are answered absolutory to
the artist, it were unwise to propose the other question—Why a poet,
painter or sculptor is not honored and loved as formerly? “As
formerly,” says some avowed sceptic in old world transcendency
and golden age affairs, “I believe formerly the artist
was as much respected and cared for as he is now. 'Tis true the Greeks
granted an immunity from taxation to some of their artists, who were often
great men in the state, and even the companions of princes. And are not some
of our poets peers? Have not some of our artists received knighthood from
the hand of their Sovereign, and have not some of them received
pensions?”

To answer objections of this latitude demands the assertion of certain
characteristic facts which, tho' not here demonstrated, may be authenticated
by reference to history. Of these, the facts of 122 Alfred's disguised visit to the Danish camp, and
Aulaff's visit to the Saxon, are sufficient to show in what respect the
poets of that period were held; when a man without any safe conduct whatever
could enter the enemy's camp on the very eve of battle, as was here the
case; could enter unopposed, unquestioned, and return unmolested!—What
could have conferred upon the poet of that day so singular a privilege? What
upon the poet of an earlier time that sanctity in behoof whereof

“The great Emathian conqueror bid spareThe house of Pindarus, when temple and towerWent to the ground: and the repeated airOf sad Electra's poet had the powerTo save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.”

What but an universal recognition of the poet as an universal benefactor
of mankind? And did mankind recognize him as such, from some unaccountable
infatuation, or because his labours obtained for him an indefeasible right
to that estimate? How came it, when a Greek sculptor had completed some
operose performance, that his countrymen bore him in triumph thro' their
city, and rejoiced in his prosperity as identical with their own? How but
because his art had embodied some principle of beauty whose mysterious
influence it was their pride to appreciate—or he had enduringly
moulded the limbs of some well-trained Athlete, such as it was their
interest to develop, or he had recorded the overthrow of some barbaric
invader whom their fathers had fallen to repel.

In the middle ages when a knight listened, in the morning, to some song
of brave doing, ere evening he himself might be the hero of such
song.—What wonder then that he held sacred the function of the poet!
Now-a-days our heroes (and we have them) are left unchapleted and
neglected—and therefore the poet lives and dies neglected.

Thus it would appear from these facts (which have been collaterally
evolved in course of enquiring into the propriety of choosing the subject
from past or present time, and in course of the consequent analysis) that
Art, to become a more powerful engine of civilization, assuming a
practically humanizing tendency (the admitted function of Art), should be
made more directly conversant with the things, incidents, and influences
which surround and constitute the living world of those whom Art proposes to
improve, and, whether it should appear in event that Art can or can not
assume this attitude without jeopardizing her specific existence, that such
a consummation were desirable must be equally obvious in either case.

123

Let us return now to the former consideration. It was stated that the
poet is affected by every day incidents, which would have little or no
effect on the mind of a general observer: and if you ask the poet, who from
his conduct may be the supposed advocate of the past as the fittest medium
for poetic eduction, why he embodied the suggestions of to-day in the matter
and dress of antiquity; he is likely to answer as follows.—“You
have stated that men pass by that which furnishes me with my subject: If I
merely reproduce what they slighted, the reproduction will be slighted
equally. It appears then that I must devise some means of attracting their
sympathies—and the medium of antiquity is the fittest for three
several reasons. 1st.—Nothing comes down to us from antiquity unless
fraught with sufficient interest of some sort, to warrant it being worthy of
record. Thus, all incidents which we possess of the old time being more or
less interesting, there arises an illative impression that all things of old
really were so: and all things in idea associated with that time, whether
real or fictitious, are afforded a favorable entertainment. Now these
associations are neither trivial nor fanciful:{11} for I remember to have
discovered, after visiting the British Museum for the first time, that the
odour of camphor, for which I had hitherto no predilection, afforded me a
peculiar satisfaction, seemingly suggestive of things scientific or
artistic; it was in fact a literary smell! All this was vague and
unaccountable until some time after when this happened again, and I was at
once reminded of an enormous walrus at the British Museum, and then
remembered how the whole collection, from end to end, was permeated with the
odour of camphor! Still, despite the consciousness of this, the
camphor retains its influence. Now let a poem, a painting, or sculpture,
smell ever so little of antiquity, and every intelligent reader will be full
of delightful imaginations. 2nd.—All things ancient are mysterious in
obscurity:—veneration, wonder, and curiosity are the result.
3rd.—All things ancient are dead and gone:—we sympathize with
them accordingly. All these effects of antiquity, as a means of enforcing
poetry, declare it too powerful an ally to be readily abandoned by the
poet.” To all this the painter will add that the costume of almost any
ancient time is more beautiful than that of the present—added to which
it exposes more of that most beautiful of all objects, the human figure.

{11} Here the author, in the person of respondent, takes occasion to
narrate a real fact.

Thus we have a formidable array of objections to the choice of 124present-day subjects: and first, it was
objected and granted, that incidents of the present time are well nigh
barren in poetic attraction for the many. Then it was objected, but not
granted, that their poetic or pictorial counterparts will be equally
unattractive also: but this last remains to be proved. It was said, and is
believed by the author, (and such as doubt it he does not address) that all
good men are more or less poetical in some way or other; while their poetry
shows itself at various times. Thus the business-man in the street has other
to think of than poetry; but when he is inclined to look at a picture, or in
his more poetical humour, will he neglect the pictorial counterpart of what
he neglected before? To test this, show him a camera obscura, where there is
a more literal transcript of present-day nature than any painting can
be:—what is the result? He expresses no anxiety to quit it, but a
great curiosity to investigate; he feels it is very beautiful, indeed more
beautiful than nature: and this he will say is because he does not see
nature as an artist does. Now the solution of all this is easy: 1st. He is
in a mood of mind which renders him accessible to the influences of poetry,
which was not before the case. 2nd. He looks at that steadily which he
before regarded cursorily; and, as the picture remains in his eye, it
acquires an amount of harmony, in behoof of an intrinsic harmony resident in
the organ itself, which exerts proportionately modifying influences on all
things that enter within it; and of the nervous harmony, and the beautifully
apportioned stimuli of alternating ocular spectra. 3rd. There is a
resolution of discord effected by the instrument itself, inasmuch as its
effects are homogeneous. All these harmonizing influences are equally true
of the painting; and though we have no longer the homogeneous effect of the
camera, we have the homogeneous effect of one mind, viz., the mind of the
artist.

Thus having disproved the supposed poetical obstacles to the rendering of
real life or nature in its own real garb and time, as faithfully as Art can
render it, nothing need be said to answer the advantages of the antique or
mediæval rendering; since they were only called in to neutralize the
aforesaid obstacles, which obstacles have proved to be fictitious. It
remains then to consider the artistic objection of costume, &c.,
which consideration ranges under the head of real differences between the
things of past and present times, a consideration formerly postponed.
But this requiring a patient analysis, will necessitate a further
postponement, and in conclusion, there will be briefly stated the elements
of the argument, thus.—It must be obvious to every physicist that
physical beauty (which this subject involves on the one side [the ancient]
as opposed to the 125 want of it on the other
[the modern]) was in ancient times as superior to physical beauty in the
modern, as psychical beauty in the modern is superior to psychical beauty in
the ancient. Costume then, as physical, is more beautiful ancient than
modern. Now that a certain amount of physical beauty is requisite to
constitute Fine Art, will be readily admitted; but what that amount is, must
be ever undefined. That the maximum of physical beauty does not constitute
the maximum of Fine Art, is apparent from the facts of the physical beauty
of Early Christian Art being inferior to that of Grecian art; whilst,
in the concrete, Early Christian Art is superior to Grecian. Indeed some
specimens of Early Christian Art are repulsive rather than beautiful, yet
these are in many cases the highest works of Art.

In the “Plague at Ashdod,” great physical beauty, resulting
from picturesque costume and the exposed human figure, was so far from
desirable, that it seems purposely deformed by blotches of livid color; yet
the whole is a most noble work of Poussin. Containing as much physical
beauty as this picture, the writer remembers to have seen an incident in the
streets where a black-haired, sordid, wicked-headed man, was striking the
butt of his whip at the neck of a horse, to urge him round an angle of the
pavement; a smocked countryman offered him the loan of his mules: a
blacksmith standing by, showed him how to free the wheel, by only swerving
the animal to the left: he, taking no notice whatever, went on striking and
striking; whilst a woman waiting to cross, with a child in her one hand, and
with the other pushing its little head close to her side, looked with wide
eyes at this monster.

This familiar incident, affording a subject fraught with more moral
interest than, and as much picturesque matter as, many antique or
mediæval subjects, is only wanting in that romantic attraction which,
by association, attaches to things of the past. Yet, let these modern
subjects once excite interest, as it really appears they can, and the
incidents of to-day will acquire romantic attractions by the same
association of ideas.

The claims of ancient, mediæval, and modern subjects will be
considered in detail at a future period.

126

The Carillon. (Antwerp and Bruges)

In these and others of the Flemish Towns, the Carillon, or chimes
which have a most fantastic and delicate music, are played almost
continually The custom is very ancient.

At Antwerp, there is a low wallBinding the city, and a moatBeneath, that the wind keeps afloat.You pass the gates in a slow drawlOf wheels. If it is warm at allThe Carillon will give you thought.

I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,What time the urgent weight of soundAt sunset seems to heave it round.Far up, the Carillon did searchThe wind; and the birds came to perchFar under, where the gables wound.

In Antwerp harbour on the ScheldtI stood along, a certain spaceOf night. The mist was near my face:Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.The Carillon kept pause, and dweltIn music through the silent place.

At Bruges, when you leave the train,—A singing numbness in your ears,—The Carillon's first sound appearsOnly the inner moil. AgainA little minute though—your brainTakes quiet, and the whole sense hears.

John Memmeling and John Van EyckHold state at Bruges. In sore shameI scanned the works that keep their name.The Carillon, which then did strikeMine ears, was heard of theirs alike:It set me closer unto them.

I climbed at Bruges all the flightThe Belfry has of ancient stone.For leagues I saw the east wind blown:The earth was grey, the sky was white.I stood so near upon the heightThat my flesh felt the Carillon.

October, 1849.

Emblems

127

I lay through one long afternoon,Vacantly plucking the grass.I lay on my back, with steadfast gazeWatching the cloud-shapes pass;Until the evening's chilly dampsRose from the hollows below,Where the cold marsh-reeds grow.

I saw the sun sink down behindThe high point of a mountain;Its last light lingered on the weedsThat choked a shattered fountain,Where lay a rotting bird, whose plumesHad beat the air in soaring.On these things I was poring:—

The sun seemed like my sense of life,Now weak, that was so strong;The fountain—that continual pulseWhich throbbed with human song:The bird lay dead as that wild hopeWhich nerved my thoughts when young.These symbols had a tongue,

And told the dreary lengths of yearsI must drag my weight with me;Or be like a mastless ship stuck fastOn a deep, stagnant sea.A man on a dangerous height alone,If suddenly struck blind,Will never his home path find.

When divers plunge for ocean's pearls,And chance to strike a rock,Who plunged with greatest force belowReceives the heaviest shock.With nostrils wide and breath drawn in,I rushed resolved on the race;Then, stumbling, fell in the chase.

128Yet with time's cycles forests swellWhere stretched a desert plain:Time's cycles make the mountains riseWhere heaved the restless main:On swamps where moped the lonely stork,In the silent lapse of timeStands a city in its prime.

I thought: then saw the broadening shadeGrow slowly over the mound,That reached with one long level slopeDown to a rich vineyard ground:The air about lay still and hushed,As if in serious thought:But I scarcely heeded aught,

Till I heard, hard by, a thrush break forth,Shouting with his whole voice,So that he made the distant airAnd the things around rejoice.My soul gushed, for the sound awokeMemories of early joy:I sobbed like a chidden boy.

Sonnet: Early Aspirations

How many a throb of the young poet-heart,Aspiring to the ideal bliss of Fame,Deems that Time soon may sanctify his claimAmong the sons of song to dwell apart.—Time passes—passes! The aspiring flameOf Hope shrinks down; the white flower PoesyBreaks on its stalk, and from its earth-turned eyeDrop sleepy tears instead of that sweet dewRich with inspiring odours, insect wingsDrew from its leaves with every changing sky,While its young innocent petals unsunn'd grew.No more in pride to other ears he sings,But with a dying charm himself unto:—For a sad season: then, to active life he springs.

129

From the Cliffs: Noon

The sea is in its listless chime:Time's lapse it is, made audible,—The murmur of the earth's large shell.In a sad blueness beyond rhymeIt ends: sense, without thought, can passNo stadium further. Since time was,This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No stagnance that death wins,—it hathThe mournfulness of ancient life,Always enduring at dull strife.As the world's heart of rest and wrath,Its painful pulse is in the sands.Last utterly, the whole sky stands,Grey and not known, along its path.

Fancies at Leisure

I. In Spring

The sky is blue here, scarcely with a stainOf grey for clouds: here the young grasses gainA larger growth of green over this splinterFallen from the ruin. Spring seems to have told WinterHe shall not freeze again here. Tho' their lossOf leaves is not yet quite repaired, trees tossSprouts from their boughs. The ash you called so stiffCurves, daily, broader shadow down the cliff.

II. In Summer

How the rooks caw, and their beaks seem to clank!Let us just move out there,—(it might be coolUnder those trees,) and watch how the thick tankBy the old mill is black,—a stagnant poolOf rot and insects. There goes by a lankDead hairy dog floating. Will Nature's ruleOf life return hither no more? The plankRots in the crushed weeds, and the sun is cruel.

130

III. The Breadth of Noon

Long time I lay there, while a breeze would blowFrom the south softly, and, hard by, a slenderPoplar swayed to and fro to it. SurrenderWas made of all myself to quiet. NoLeast thought was in my mind of the least woe:Yet the void silence slowly seemed to renderMy calmness not less calm, but yet more tender,And I was nigh to weeping.—‘Ere I go,’I thought, ‘I must make all this stillness mine;The sky's blue almost purple, and these threeHills carved against it, and the pine on pineThe wood in their shade has. All this I seeSo inwardly I fancy it may beSeen thus of parted souls by their
sunshine.’

IV. Sea-Freshness

Look at that crab there. See if you can't haulHis backward progress to this spar of a shipThrown up and sunk into the sand here. ClipHis clipping feelers hard, and give him allYour hand to gripe at: he'll take care not fall:So,—but with heed, for you are like to slipIn stepping on the plank's sea-slime. Your lip—No wonder—curves in mirth at the slow drawlOf the squat creature's legs. We've quite a shineOf waves round us, and here there comes a windSo fresh it must bode us good luck. How longBoatman, for one and sixpence? Line by lineThe sea comes toward us sun-ridged. Oh! we sinnedTaking the crab out: let's redress his wrong.

V. The Fire Smouldering

I look into the burning coals, and seeFaces and forms of things; but they soon pass,Melting one into other: the firm massCrumbles, and breaks, and fades gradually,Shape into shape as in a dream may be,Into an image other than it was:And so on till the whole falls in, and hasNot any likeness,—face, and hand, and tree,131All gone. So with the mind: thought follows thought,This hastening, and that pressing upon this,A mighty crowd within so narrow room:And then at length heavy-eyed slumbers come,The drowsy fancies grope about, and missTheir way, and what was so alive is nought.

Papers of “The M.S.
Society” {12}

{12} The Editor is requested to state that “M. S.” does not
here mean Manuscript.

No. I. An Incident in the Siege of Troy, seen from a modern Observatory

Sixteen Specials in Priam's KeepSat down to their mahogany:The League, just then, had made busters cheap,And Hesiod writ his “Theogony,”A work written to prove “that, if men would be men,And demand their rights again and again,They might live like gods, have infinite smokes,Drink infinite rum, drive infinite mokes,Which would come from every part of the knownAnd civilized globe, twice as good as their own,And, finally, Ilion, the work-shop should beOf the world—one vast manufactory!”

From arrow-slits, port-holes, windows, what not,Their sixteen quarrels the Specials had shotFrom sixteen arblasts, their daily task;Why they'd to do it they didn't ask,For, after they'd done it, they sat down to dinner;The sixteen Specials they didn't get thinner;But kept quite loyal, and every dayAsked no questions but fired away.

Would you like me to tell you the reason whyThese sixteen Specials kept letting flyFrom eleven till one, as the Chronicle speaks?They did it, my boys, to annoy the Greeks,Who kept up a perpetual cannonadeOn the walls, and threaten'd an escalade.132The sixteen Specials were so arrangedThat the shots they shot were not shots exchanged,But every shot so told on the foeThe Greeks were obliged to draw it mild:Diomedes—“A fix,” Ulysses—“No
go”Declared it, the “king of men” cried like a
child;Whilst the Specials, no more than a fine black TomI keep to serenade Mary fromThe tiles, where he lounges every night,Knew nor cared what they did, and were perfectly
right.

But the fact was thus: one Helenus,A man much faster than any of us,More fast than a gent at the top of a “bus,”More fast than the coming of “Per col. sus.”Which Shakespeare says comes galloping,(I take his word for anything)This Helenus had a cure of souls—He had cured the souls of several Greeks,Achilles sole or heel,—the rollsOf fame (not French) say Paris:—speaksAnatomist Quain thereof. Who seeksMay read the story from z to a;He has handled and argued it every way;—A subject on which there's a good deal to say.His work was ever the best, and still is,Because of this note on the Tendo Achillis.

This Helenus was a man well bred,He was up in Electricity,Fortification, Theology,Æsthetics and Pugilicity;Celsus and Gregory he'd read;Knew every “dodge” of glove and fist;Was a capital curate, (I think I've said)And Transcendental Anatomist:Well up in Materia Medica,Right up in Toxicology,And Medical Jurisprudence, that sell!And the dead sell Physiology:Knew what and how much of any potationWould get him through any examination:With credit not small, had passed the HallAnd the College——and they couldn't pluck him
at all.133He'd written on Rail-roads, delivered a lectureUpon the Electric Telegraph,Had played at single-stick with Hector,And written a paper on half-and-half.

With those and other works of noteHe was not at all a “people's man,”Though public, for the works he wroteWere not that sort the people canAdmire or read; they were MathematicThe most part, some were Hydrostatic;But Algebraic, in the main,And full of a, b, c, and n—And other letters which perplex—The last was full of double x!In fact, such stuff as one may easilyImagine, didn't go down greasily,Nor calculated to produceSuch heat as “cooks the public goose,”And does it of so brown a hueMen wonder while they relish too.

It therefore was that much aloneHe studied; and a room is shownIn a coffee-house, an upper room,Where none but hungry devils come,Wherein 'tis said, with animationHe read “Vestiges of Creation.”

Accordingly, a month aboutAfter he'd chalked up steak and stoutFor the last time, he gave the worldA pamphlet, wherein he unfurledA tissue of facts which, soon as blown,Ran like wildfire through the town.And, first of all, he plainly showedA capital error in the modeOf national defences, thus—“The Greek one thousand miles from us,”Said he, (for nine hundred and ninety-nineThe citadel stood above the brineIn perpendicular height, allowingFor slope of glacis, thereby showingAn increase of a mile,) “'tis plainThe force that shot and shell would gain,134By gravitation, with their own,Would fire the ground by friction alone;Which, being once in fusion schooledEre cool, as Fire-mist had cooled”Would gain a motion, which must soon,Just as the earth detached the moonAnd gave her locomotive birth,Detach some twenty miles of earth,And send it swinging in the air,The Devil only could tell where!Then came the probabilityWith what increased facilityThe Greeks, by this projectile power,Might land on Ilion's highest tower,All safe and sound, in battle array,With howitzers prepared to play,And muskets to the muzzles rammed;—Why, the town would be utterly smashed and jammed,And positively, as the phrase isVernacular, be “sent to blazes”!

In the second place, he then would ask,(And here he took several members to task,And wondered—“he really must presumeTo wonder” a statesman like—you know
whom—Who ever evinced the deepest senseOf a crying sin in any expense,Should so besotted be, and lostTo the fact that now, at public cost,Powder was being day by dayWantonly wasted, blown away);—Yes, he would ask, “with what intentBut to perch the Greeks on a battlementFrom which they might o'erlook the town,The easier to batter it down,Which he had proved must be the case(If it hadn't already taken place):He called on his readers to fear and dread it,Whilst he wrote it,—whilst they read
it!”“How simple! How beautifully simple,” said he,“And obvious was the remedy!Look back a century or so—And there was the ancient Norman bow,135A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh)Efficient, better, cheaper by half:(He knew quite well the age abused itBecause, forsooth, the Normans used it)These, planted in the citadel,Would reach the walls say,—very well;There, having spent their utmost force,They'd drop down right, as a matter of course,A thousand miles! Think—a thousand miles!What was the weight for driving pilesTo this? He calculated it—'Twould equal, when both Houses sit,The weight of the entire building,Including Members, paint, and gilding;But, if a speech or the addressFrom the throne were given, something less,Because, as certain snores aver,The House is then much heavier.

Now this, though very much a rub likeFor Ministers, convinced the public;And Priam, who liked to hear its braysTo any tune but “the Marseillaise,”Summoned a Privy Council, where'Twas shortly settled to conferOn Helenus a sole commandOf Specials.—He headed that daring band!

And sixteen Specials in Priam's keepGot up from their mahogany;They smoked their pipes in silence deepTill there was such a fog—anyAttempt to discover the priest in the smotherHad bothered old Airy and Adams and t'otherAnd—Every son of an English mother.

June, 1848.

No. II. Swift's Dunces

“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this
sign, that the DUNCES are all in confederacy against
him.”—Swift.

How shall we know the dunces from the man of genius, who is no doubt our
superior in judgment, yet knows himself for a fool—by the
proverb?

136

At least, my dear Doctor, you will let me, with the mass of readers, have
clearer wits than the dunces—then why should I not know what you are
as soon as, or sooner than Bavius, &c.—unless a dunce has a good
nose, or a natural instinct for detecting wit.

Now I take it that these people stigmatized as dunces are but men of
ill-balanced mental faculties, yet perhaps, in a great degree, superior to
the average of minds. For instance, a poet of much merit, but more ambition,
has written the “Lampiad,” an epic; when he should not have
dared beyond the Doric reed: his ambitious pride has prevented the
publication of excellent pastorals, therefore the world only knows him for
his failure. This, I say, is a likely man to become a detractor; for his
good judgment shows the imperfections of most works, his own included; his
ambition (an ill-combination of self-conscious worth and spleen) leads him
to compare works of the highest repute; the works of contemporaries; and his
own. In all cases where success is most difficult, he will be most severe;
this naturally leads him to criticise the very best works.

He has himself failed; he sees errors in successful writers; he knows he
possesses certain merits, and knows what the perfection of them should be.
This is the ground work of envy, which makes a man of parts a comparative
fool, and a confederate against “true genius.”

No. III. Mental Scales

I make out my case thus—

There is an exact balance in the distribution of causes of pleasure and
pain: this has been satisfactorily proved in my next paper, upon
“Cause and Effect,” therefore I shall take it for granted. What,
then, is there but the mind to determine its own state of happiness, or
misery: just as the motion of the scales depends upon themselves, when two
equal weights are put into them. The balance ought to be truly hung; but if
the unpleasant scale is heavier, then the motion is in favor of the pleasant
scale, and vice versa. Whether the beam stands horizontally, or otherwise,
does not matter (that only determines the key): draw a line at right angles
to it, then put in your equal weights; if the angle becomes larger on the
unpleasant scale's side of the line, happiness is the result, if on the
other, misery.

It requires but a slight acquaintance with mechanics to see that he who
would be happy should have the unpleasant side heavier. I hate corollaries
or we might have a group of them equally applicable to Art and Models.

June, 1848.

Reviews 137

Some Account of the Life and Adventures of Sir Reginald Mohun, Bart.
Done in Verse by George John Cayley. Canto 1st. Pickering. 1849.

Inconsistency, whether in matters of importance or in trifles, whether in
substance or in detail, is never pleasant. We do not here impute to this
poem any inconsistency between one portion and another; but certainly its
form is at variance with its subject and treatment. In the wording of the
title, and the character of typography, there is a studious archaism: more
modern the poem itself could scarcely be.

“Sir Reginald Mohun” aims, to judge from the present sample,
at depicting the easy intercourse of high life; and the author enters on his
theme with a due amount of sympathy. It is in this respect, if in any, that
the mediæval tone of the work lasts beyond the title page. In Mr.
Cayley's eyes, the proof of the comparative prosperity of England is
that

“Still Queen Victoria sits upon her throne;Our aristocracy still keep alive,And, on the whole, may still be said to thrive,—Tho' now and then with ducal acres groanThe honored tables of the auctioneer.Nathless, our aristocracy is dear,Tho' their estates go cheap; and all must ownThat they still give society its tone.”—p. 16.

He proceeds in these terms:

“Our baronets of late appear to beUnjustly snubbed and talked and written down;Partly from follies of Sir Something Brown,Stickling for badges due to their degree,And partly that their honor's late editionsHave been much swelled with surgeons and physicians;For ‘honor hath small skill in surgery,’And skill in surgery small honor.”—p.
17.

What “honor” is here meant? and against whom is the taunt
implied?—against the “surgeons and physicians,” or against
the depreciation of them. Surely the former can hardly have been intended.
The sentence will bear to be cleared of some ambiguity, or else to be
cleared off altogether.

138

Our introduction to Sir Reginald Mohun, Lord of Nornyth Place, and of
“an income clear of 20,000 pounds,” and to his friends Raymond
St. Oun, De Lacy, Wilton, Tancarville, and Vivian—(for the author's
names are aristocratic, like his predilections)—is effected through
the medium of a stanza, new, we believe, in arrangement, though differing
but slightly from the established octave, and of verses so easy and flowing
as to make us wonder less at the promise of

“provision plentyFor cantos twelve, or may be, four and
twenty,”

than at Mr. Cayley's assertion that he “Can never get
along at all in prose.”

The incidents, as might be expected of a first canto, are neither many
nor important, and will admit of compression into a very small compass.

Sir Reginald, whose five friends had arrived at Nornyth Place late on the
preceding night, is going over the grounds with them in a shooting party
after a late breakfast. St. Oun expresses a wish to “prowl about the
place” in preference, not feeling in the mood for the required
exertion.

“‘Of lazy dogs the laziest ever fateSet on two useless legs you surely are,And born beneath some wayward sauntering starTo sit for ever swinging on a gate,And laugh at wiser people passing through.’So spake the bard De Lacy: for they twoIn frequent skirmishes of fierce debateWould bicker, tho' their mutual love was great.”—p.
35.

Mohun, however, sides with St. Oun, and agrees to escort him in his
rambles after the first few shots. He accordingly soon resigns his gun to
the keeper Oswald, whose position as one who

“came into possessionOf the head-keepership by due successionThro' sire and grandsire, who, when one was dead,Left his right heir-male keeper in his stead,”

Mr. Cayley evidently regards with some complacence. The friends enter a
boat: here, while sailing along a rivulet that winds through the estate, St.
Oun falls to talking of wealth, its value and insufficiency, of death, and
life, and fame; and coming at length to ask after the history of Sir
Reginald's past life, he suggests “this true epic opening for
relation:”

“‘In sunset rays, whose crimson fulgence
streamedAcross the flood: wrapped in deep thought they seemed.‘You are pensive, Reginald,’ at length thus
spakeThe helmsman: ‘ha! it is the mystic powerFraught by the sacred stillness of the hour:Forgive me if your reverie I break,Craving, with friendship's sympathy, to shareYour spirit's burden, be it joy or
care.’”—pp. 48, 49.

Sir Reginald Mohun's story is soon told.—Born in Italy, and losing
his mother at the moment of his birth, and his father and only sister dying
also soon after, he is left alone in the world.

“‘My father was a melancholy man,Having a touch of genius, and a heart,But not much of that worldly better partCalled force of character, which finds some planFor getting over anguish that will crushWeak hearts of stronger feeling. He beganTo pine; was pale; and had a hectic flushAt times; and from his eyelids tears would gush.

“‘Some law of hearts afflicted seems to bindA spell by which the scenes of grief grew dear;He never could leave Italy, tho' hereAnd there he wandered with unquiet mind,—Rome, Florence, Mantua, Milan; once as farAs Venice; but still Naples had a blindAttraction which still drew him thither. ThereHe died. Heaven rest his ashes from their care.

“‘He wrote, a month or so before he died,To Wilton's father; (he is Earl of Eure,My mother's brother); saying he was sureThat he should soon be gone, and would confideUs to his guardian care. My uncle cameBefore his death. We stood by his bedside.He blessed us. We, who scarcely knew the nameOf death, yet read in the expiring flame

140“‘Of his sunk eyes some awful mystery,And wept we knew not why. There was a graceOf radiant joyful hope upon his face,Most unaccustomed, and which seemed to beAll foreign to his wasted frame; and yetSo heavenly in its consolation weSmiled through the tears with which our lids were wet.His lips were cold, as, whispering, ‘Do not
fret

“‘When I am gone,’ he kissed us: and he
tookOur uncle's hands, which on our heads he laid,And said: ‘My children, do not be afraidOf Death, but be prepared to meet him. Look;Here is your mother's brother; he to herAs Reginald to Eve.’ His thin voice shook.—‘Eve was your Mother's name.’ His words did
err,As dreaming; and his wan lips ceased to
stir.’”—pp. 55-57.

(We have quoted this passage, not insensible to its defects,—some
common-place in sentiment and diction; but independently of the good it does
really contain, as being the only one of such a character sustained in
quality to a moderate length.)

Reginald and his cousin Wilton grew up together friends, though not bound
by common sympathies. The latter has known life early, and “earned
experience piecemeal:” with the former, thought has already become a
custom.

Thus far only does Reginald bring his retrospect; his other friends come
up, and they all return homeward. Here, too, ends the story of this canto;
but not without warranting some surmise of what will furnish out the next.
There is evidence of observation adroitly applied in the talk of the two
under-keepers who take charge of the boat.

“They said: ‘Oh! what a gentleman to talkIs that there Lacy! What a tongue he've got!But Mr. Vivian is a pretty shot.And what a pace his lordship wish to walk!Which Mr. Tancarville, he seemed quite beat:But he's a pleasant gentleman. Good lawk!How he do make me laugh! Dang! this 'ere seatHave wet my smalls slap thro'. Dang! what a treat!

141“‘There's company coming to the Place to morn:Bess housemaid told me. Lord and Lady——: dashMy wigs! I can't think on. But there's a mashO' comp'ny and fine ladies; fit to tornThe heads of these young chaps. Why now I'd layThis here gun to an empty powder-hornSir Reginald be in love, or that-a-way.He looks a little
downcast-loikish,—eh?’”—pp.62, 63.

It will be observed that there is no vulgarity in this vulgarism: indeed,
the gentlemanly good humour of the poem is uninterrupted. This, combined
with neatness of handling, and the habit of not over-doing, produces that
general facility of appearance which it is no disparagement, in speaking of
a first canto, to term the chief result of so much of these life and
adventures as is here “done into verse.” It may be fairly
anticipated, however, that no want of variety in the conception, or of
success in the pourtrayal, of character will need to be complained of:
meanwhile, a few passages may be quoted to confirm our assertions. The two
first extracts are examples of mere cleverness; and all that is aimed at is
attained. The former follows out a previous comparison of the world with a
“huge churn.”

“Yet some, despising life's legitimate aim,Instead of butter, would become “the cheese;”A low term for distinction. Whence the nameI know not: gents invented it; and theseGave not an etymology. I see noLikelier than this, which with their taste agrees;The caseine element I conceive to mean noLess than the beau ideal of the Casino.”—p.
12.

“Wise were the Augurers of old, nor erredIn substance, deeming that the life of man—(This is a new reflection, spick and span)—May be much influenced by the flight of birds.Our senate can no longer hold their houseWhen culminates the evil star of grouse;And stoutest patriots will their shot-belts girdWhen first o'er stubble-field hath partridge
whirred.”—p.25.

In these others there is more purpose, with a no less definite
conciseness:

“Comes forth the first great poet. Then a numberOf followers leave much literary lumber.142He cuts his phrases in the sapling grainOf language; and so weaves them at his will.They from his wickerwork extract with painThe wands now warped and stiffened, which but illBend to their second-hand employment.”—pp. 4, 5.

“What's life? A riddle;Or sieve which sifts you thro' it in the
middle.”—p.45.

The misadventures of the five friends on their road to Nornyth are very
sufficiently described:

“The night was cold and cloudy as they toppedA moorland slope, and met the bitter blast,So cutting that their ears it almost cropped;And rain began to fall extremely fast.A broken sign-post left them in great doubtAbout two roads; and, when an hour was passed,They learned their error from a lucid lout;Soon after, one by one, their lamps went
out.”—p.29.

There remains to point out one fault,—and that the last fault the
occurrence of which could be looked for, after so clearly expressed an
intention as this:

“But, if an Author takes to writing fine,(Which means, I think, an artificial tone),The public sicken and won't read a line.I hope there's nothing of this sort in mine.”—p.
6.

A quotation or two will fully explain our meaning: and we would seriously
ask Mr. Cayley to reflect whether he has always borne his principle in mind,
and avoided “writing fine;” whether he has not sometimes fallen
into high-flown common-place of the most undisguised stamp, rendered,
moreover, doubly inexcusable and out of place by being put into the mouth of
one of the personages of the poem; It is Sir Reginald Mohun that speaks; and
truly, though not thrust forward as a “wondrous paragon of
praise,” he must be confessed to be,

“Judging by specimens the author quotes,An utterer of most ordinary phrases,”

not words only and sentences, but real phrases, in the more distinct
and specific sense of the term.

143“‘There, while yet a new born thing,Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing;My mother died to give me birth: forlornI came into the world, a babe of woe,Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn;Yet heir to what the idolators of showDeem life's good things, which earthly bliss bestow.

“‘The riches of the heart they call a dream;Love, hope, faith, friendship, hollow phantasies:Living but for their pockets and their eyes,They stifle in their breasts the purer beamOf sunshine glanced from heaven upon their clay,To be its light and warmth. This is a themeFor homilies: and I will only say,The heart feeds not on fortune's baubles
gay.’”—p. 51.

Sir Reginald's narrative concludes after this fashion:

“‘But what is this? A dubious compromise;Twilight of cloudy zones, whereon the blazeOf sunshine breaks but seldom with its raysOf heavenly hope, towards which the spirit sighsIts aspirations, and is lost again'Mid doubts: to grasp the wisdom of the skiesToo feeble, tho' convinced earth's bonds are vain,Cowering faint-hearted in the festering
chain.’”—p. 60.

A similar instance of conventionality constantly repeated is the sin of
inversion, which is no less prevalent, throughout the poem, in the
conversational than in the narrative portions. In some cases the exigencies
of rhyme may be pleaded in palliation, as for “Cam's marge
along” and “breezy willows cool,” which occur in two
consecutive lines of a speech; but there are many for which no such excuse
can be urged. Does any one talk of “sloth obscure,” or of
“hearts afflicted?” Or what reason is there for preferring
“verses easy” to easy verses? Ought not the principle
laid down in the following passage of the introduction to be followed out,
not only into the intention, but into the manner and quality also, of the
whole work?

“‘I mean to be sincere in this my lay:That which I think I shall write down withoutA drop of pain or varnish. Therefore, pray,Whatever I may chance to rhyme about,Read it without the shadow of a doubt.’”—p.
12.

144 Again, the Author appears to us to have
acted unwisely in occasionally departing from the usual construction of his
stanzas, as in this instance:

“‘But, as I said, you know my history;And your's—not that you made a mysteryOf it, nor used reserve, yet, being notBy nature an Autophonophilete,(A word De Lacy fashioned and called me it)—Your's you have never told me yet. And whatCan be a more appropriate occasionThan this true epic opening for relation?’”—p.
48.

Here the lines do not cohere so happily as in the more varied
distribution of the rhymes; and, moreover, as a question of principle, we
think it not advisable to allow of minor deviations from the uniformity of a
prescribed metre.

It may be well to take leave of Mr. Cayley with a last quotation of his
own words,—words which no critic ought to disregard:

“I shall be deeply grateful to reviews,Whether they deign approval, or rebuke,For any hints they think may disabuseDelusions of my inexperienced muse.”—
p.8.

If our remarks have been such as to justify the Author's wish for sincere
criticism, our object is attained; and we look forward for the second canto
with confidence in his powers.

Published Monthly.—Price One S.

Art and Poetry,
Being Thoughts towards Nature.

Conducted principally by Artists.

Of the little worthy the name of writing that has ever been written upon
the principles of Art, (of course excepting that on the mere mechanism), a
very small portion is by Artists themselves; and that is so scattered, that
one scarcely knows where to find the ideas of an Artist except in his
pictures.

With a view to obtain the thoughts of Artists, upon Nature as evolved in
Art, in another language besides their own proper one, this
Periodical has been established. Thus, then, it is not open to the
conflicting opinions of all who handle the brush and palette, nor is it
restricted to actual practitioners; but is intended to enunciate the
principles of those who, in the true spirit of Art, enforce a rigid
adherence to the simplicity of Nature either in Art or Poetry, and
consequently regardless whether emanating from practical Artists, or from
those who have studied nature in the Artist's School.

Hence this work will contain such original Tales (in prose or verse),
Poems, Essays, and the like, as may seem conceived in the spirit, or with
the intent, of exhibiting a pure and unaffected style, to which purpose
analytical Reviews of current Literature—especially Poetry—will
be introduced; as also illustrative Etchings, one of which latter, executed
with the utmost care and completeness, will appear in each number.

No. 4. (Price One Shilling.) MAY, 1850.

With an Etching by W.H. Deverell.

Art and Poetry:

Being Thoughts towards Nature
Conducted principally by Artists.

When whoso merely hath a little thoughtWill plainly think the thought which is in him,—Not imaging another's bright or dim,Not mangling with new words what others taught;When whoso speaks, from having either soughtOr only found,—will speak, not just to skimA shallow surface with words made and trim,But in that very speech the matter brought:Be not too keen to cry—“So this is all!—A thing I might myself have thought as well,But would not say it, for it was not worth!”Ask: “Is this truth?” For is it still to tellThat, be the theme a point or the whole earth,Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

The Subscribers to this Work are respectfully informed that the future
Numbers will appear on the last day of the Month for which they are dated.
Also, that a supplementary, or large-sized Etching will occasionally be
given.

[Illustration]

145

Viola and Olivia

When Viola, a servant of the Duke,Of him she loved the page, went, sent by him,To tell Olivia that great love which shookHis breast and stopt his tongue; was it a whim,Or jealousy or fear that she must lookUpon the face of that Olivia?

'Tis hard to say if it were whim or fearOr jealousy, but it was natural,As natural as what came next, the nearIntelligence of hearts: OliviaLoveth, her eye abused by a thin wallOf custom, but her spirit's eyes were clear.

Clear? we have oft been curious to knowThe after-fortunes of those lovers dear;Having a steady faith some deed must showThat they were married souls—unmarried here—Having an inward faith that love, called soIn verity, is of the spirit, clearOf earth and dress and sex—it may be nearWhat Viola returned Olivia?

146

A Dialogue on Art

[The following paper had been sent as a contribution to this publication
scarcely more than a week before its author, Mr. John Orchard, died. It was
written to commence a series of “Dialogues on Art,” which death
has rendered for ever incomplete: nevertheless, the merits of this
commencement are such that they seemed to warrant its publication as a
fragment; and in order that the chain of argument might be preserved, so far
as it goes, uninterrupted, the dialogue is printed entire in the present
number, despite its length. Of the writer, but little can be said. He was an
artist; but ill health, almost amounting to infirmity—his portion from
childhood—rendered him unequal to the bodily labour inseparable from
his profession: and in the course of his short life, whose youth was
scarcely consummated, he exhibited, from time to time, only a very few small
pictures, and these, as regards public recognition, in no way successfully.
In art, however, he gave to the “seeing eye,” token of that
ability and earnestness which the “hearing ear” will not fail to
recognize in the dialogue now published; where the vehicle of expression,
being more purely intellectual, was more within his grasp than was the
physical and toilsome embodiment of art.

It is possible that a search among the papers he has left, may bring to
light a few other fugitive pieces, which will, in such event, as the Poem
succeeding this Dialogue, be published in these pages.

To the end that the Author's scheme may be, as far as is now possible,
understood and appreciated, we subjoin, in his own words, some explanation
of his further intent, and of the views and feelings which guided him in the
composition of the dialogue:

“I have adopted the form of dialogue for several, to me, cogent
reasons; 1st, because it gives the writer the power of exhibiting the
question, Art, on all its sides; 2nd, because the great phases of Art could
be represented idiosyncratically; and, to make this clear, I have named
the several speakers accordingly; 3rd, because dialogue secures the
attention; and, that secured, deeper things strike, and go deeper than
otherwise they could be made to; and, 4th and last, because all my earliest
and most delightful pleasures associate themselves with dialogue,—(the
old dramatists, Lucian, Walter Savage Landor, &c.)

“You will find that I have not made one speaker say a thing on
purpose for another to condemn it; but that I make each one utter his wisest
in the very wisest manner he can, or rather, that I can for him.

“The further continuation of this 1st dialogue embraces the
question Nature, and its processes, invention and
imitation,—imitation chiefly. Kosmon begins by showing, in
illustration of the truth of Christian's concluding sentences, how
imperfectly all the Ancients, excepting the Hebrews, loved, understood, or
felt Nature, &c. This is not an unimportant portion of Art
knowledge.

“I must not forget to say that the last speech of Kosmon will be
answered by Christian when they discourse of imitation. It properly belongs
to imitation; and, under that head, it can be most effectively and perfectly
confuted. Somewhat after this idea, the “verticalism” and
“involution” will be shown to be direct from Nature; the
gilding, &c., disposed of on the ground of the old piety using the most
precious materials as the most religious and worthy of them; and hence, by a
very easy and probable transition, they concluded that that which was most
soul-worthy, was also most natural.”]

147

Dialogue I., in the House of Kalon

Kalon. Welcome, my friends:—this day above all others; to-day is
the first day of spring. May it be the herald of a bountiful year,—not
alone in harvests of seeds. Great impulses are moving through man; swift as
the steam-shot shuttle, weaving some mighty pattern, goes the new birth of
mind. As yet, hidden from eyes is the design: whether it be poetry, or
painting, or music, or architecture, or whether it be a divine harmony of
all, no manner of mind can tell; but that it is mighty, all manners of
minds, moved to involuntary utterance, affirm. The intellect has at last
again got to work upon thought: too long fascinated by matter and prisoned
to motive geometry, genius—wisdom seem once more to have become human,
to have put on man, and to speak with divine simplicity. Kosmon, Sophon,
again welcome! your journey is well-timed; Christian, my young friend, of
whom I have often written to you, this morning tells me by letter that
to-day he will pay me his long-promised visit. You, I know, must rejoice to
meet him: this interchange of knowledge cannot fail to improve us, both by
knocking down and building up: what is true we shall hold in common; what is
false not less in common detest. The debateable ground, if at last equally
debateable as it was at first, is yet ploughed; and some after-comer may sow
it with seed, and reap therefrom a plentiful harvest.

Sophon. Kalon, you speak wisely. Truth hath many sides like a diamond
with innumerable facets, each one alike brilliant and piercing. Your
information respecting your friend Christian has not a little interested me,
and made me desirous of knowing him.

Kosmon. And I, no less than Sophon, am delighted to hear that we shall
both see and taste your friend.

Sophon. Kalon, by what you just now said, you would seem to think a
dearth of original thought in the world, at any time, was an evil: perhaps
it is not so; nay, perhaps, it is a good! Is not an interregnum of genius
necessary somewhere? A great genius, sun-like, compels lesser suns to
gravitate with and to him; and this is subversive of originality. Age is as
visible in thought as it is in man. Death is indispensably requisite for a
new life. Genius is like a tree, sheltering and affording support to
numberless creepers and climbers, which latter die and live many times
before their protecting tree does; flourishing even whilst that decays, and
thus, lending to it a greenness not its own; but no new life can come out of
that 148 expiring tree; it must die: and it is
not until it is dead, and fallen, and rotted into compost, that
another tree can grow there; and many years will elapse before the new birth
can increase and occupy the room the previous one occupied, and flourish
anew with a greenness all its own. This on one side. On another; genius is
essentially imitative, or rather, as I just now said, gravitative; it
gravitates towards that point peculiarly important at the moment of its
existence; as air, more rarified in some places than in others, causes the
winds to rush towards them as toward a centre: so that if poetry,
painting, or music slumbers, oratory may ravish the world, or chemistry, or
steam-power may seduce and rule, or the sciences sit enthroned. Thus, nature
ever compensates one art with another; her balance alone is the always just
one; for, like her course of the seasons, she grows, ripens, and lies
fallow, only that stronger, larger and better food may be reared.

Kalon. By your speaking of chemistry, and the mechanical arts and
sciences, as periodically ruling the world along with poetry, painting, and
music,—am I to understand that you deem them powers intellectually
equal, and to require of their respective professors as mighty, original,
and human a genius for their successful practice?

Kosmon. Human genius! why not? Are they not equally human?—nay, are
they not—especially steam-power, chemistry and the electric
telegraph—more—eminently more—useful to man, more
radically civilizers, than music, poetry, painting, sculpture, or
architecture?

Kalon. Stay, Kosmon! whither do you hurry? Between chemistry and the
mechanical arts and sciences, and between poetry, painting, and music, there
exists the whole totality of genius—of genius as distinguished from
talent and industry. To be useful alone is not to be great: plus only
is plus, and the sum is minus something and plus in
nothing if the most unimaginable particle only be absent. The fine arts,
poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and architecture, as thought, or idea,
Athene-like, are complete, finished, revelations of wisdom at once. Not so
the mechanical arts and sciences: they are arts of growth; they are shaped
and formed gradually, (and that, more by a blind sort of guessing than by
intuition,) and take many men's lives to win even to one true principle. On
all sides they are the exact opposites of each other; for, in the former,
the principles from the first are mature, and only the manipulation
immature; in the latter, it is the principles that are almost always
immature, and the manipulation as constantly mature. The fine arts are
always grounded upon truth; the mechanical arts and sciences almost always
upon hypothesis; the first are unconfined, infinite, immaterial, impossible
149 of reduction into formulas, or of
conversion into machines; the last are limited, finite, material, can be
uttered through formulas, worked by arithmetic, tabulated and seen in
machines.

Sophon. Kosmon, you see that Kalon, true to his nature, prefers the
beautiful and good, to the good without the beautiful; and you, who love
nature, and regard all that she, and what man from her, can produce, with
equal delight,—true to your's,—cannot perceive wherefore he
limits genius to the fine arts. Let me show you why Kalon's ideas are truer
than yours. You say that chemistry, steam-power, and the electric telegraph,
are more radically civilizers than poetry, painting, or music: but bethink
you: what emotions beyond the common and selfish ones of wonder and fear do
the mechanical arts or sciences excite, or communicate? what pity, or love,
or other holy and unselfish desires and aspirations, do they elicit? Inert
of themselves in all teachable things, they are the agents only whereby
teachable things,—the charities, sympathies and love,—may be
more swiftly and more certainly conveyed and diffused: and beyond diffusing
media the mechanical arts or sciences cannot get; for they are merely simple
facts; nothing more: they cannot induct; for they, in or of themselves, have
no inductive powers, and their office is confined to that of carrying and
spreading abroad the powers which do induct; which powers make a full,
complete, and visible existence only in the fine arts. In FACT and THOUGHT
we have the whole question of superiority decided. Fact is merely physical
record: Thought is the application of that record to something human.
Without application, the fact is only fact, and nothing more; the
application, thought, then, certainly must be superior to the record, fact.
Also in thought man gets the clearest glimpse he will ever have of soul, and
sees the incorporeal make the nearest approach to the corporeal that it is
possible for it to do here upon earth. And hence, these noble acts of wisdom
are—far—far above the mechanical arts and sciences, and are
properly called fine arts, because their high and peculiar office is to
refine.

Kosmon. But, certainly thought is as much exercised in deducting from
physical facts the sciences and mechanical arts as ever it is in poetry,
painting, or music. The act of inventing print, or of applying steam, is
quite as soul-like as the inventing of a picture, poem, or statue.

Kalon. Quite. The chemist, poet, engineer, or painter, alike, think. But
the things upon which they exercise their several faculties are very widely
unlike each other; the chemist or engineer cogitates only the physical; the
poet or painter joins to the physical the human, and investigates
soul—scans the world in man added to the world 150 without him—takes in universal creation, its
sights, sounds, aspects, and ideas. Sophon says that the fine arts are
thoughts; but I think I know a more comprehensive word; for they are
something more than thoughts; they are things also; that word is
NATURE—Nature fully—thorough nature—the world of creation.
All that is in man, his mysteries of soul, his thoughts and
emotions—deep, wise, holy, loving, touching, and fearful,—or in
the world, beautiful, vast, ponderous, gloomy, and awful, moved with
rhythmic harmonious utterance—that is Poetry. All that is
of man—his triumphs, glory, power, and passions; or of the
world—its sunshine and clouds, its plains, hills or valleys, its
wind-swept mountains and snowy Alps, river and ocean—silent, lonely,
severe, and sublime—mocked with living colours, hue and
tone,—that is Painting. Man—heroic man, his acts,
emotions, loves,—aspirative, tender, deep, and
calm,—intensified, purified, colourless,—exhibited peculiarly
and directly through his own form;that is sculpture. All the voices
of nature—of man—his bursts of rage, pity, and fear—his
cries of joy—his sighs of love; of the winds and the
waters—tumultuous, hurrying, surging, tremulous, or gently
falling—married to melodious numbers;that is music. And, the
music of proportions—of nature and man, and the harmony and opposition
of light and shadow, set forth in the ponderous; that is
Architecture.

Christian. [as he enters] Forbear, Kalon! These I know for your
dear fiends, Kosmon and Sophon. The moment of discoursing with them has at
last arrived: May I profit by it! Kalon, fearful of checking your current of
thought, I stood without, and heard that which you said: and, though I agree
with you in all your definitions of poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and
architecture; yet certainly all things in or of man, or the world, are not,
however equally beautiful, equally worthy of being used by the artist. Fine
art absolutely rejects all impurities of form; not less absolutely does it
reject all impurities of passion and expression. Everything throughout a
poem, picture, or statue, or in music, may be sensuously beautiful; but
nothing must be sensually so. Sins are only paid for in virtues; thus, every
sin found is a virtue lost—lost—not only to the artist, but a
cause of loss to others—to all who look upon what he does. He should
deem his art a sacred treasure, intrusted to him for the common good; and
over it he should build, of the most precious materials, in the simplest,
chastest, and truest proportions, a temple fit for universal worship:
instead of which, it is too often the case that he raises above it an
edifice of clay; which, as mortal as his life, falls, burying both it and
himself under a heap of dirt. To preserve him from this corruption of his
art, let him erect for 151 his guidance a
standard awfully high above himself. Let him think of Christ; and what he
would not show to as pure a nature as His, let him never be seduced to work
on, or expose to the world.

Kosmon. Oh, Kalon, whither do we go! Greek art is condemned, and Satire
hath got its death-stroke. The beautiful is not the beautiful unless it is
fettered to the moral; and Virtue rejects the physical perfections, lest she
should fall in love with herself, and sin and cause sin.

Christian. Nay, Kosmon. Nothing pure,—nothing that is innocent,
chaste, unsensual,—whether Greek or satirical, is condemned: but
everything—every picture, poem, statue, or piece of music—which
elicits the sensual, viceful, and unholy desires of our nature—is, and
that utterly. The beautiful was created the true, morally as well as
physically; vice is a deformment of virtue,—not of form, to which it
is a parasitical addition—an accretion which can and must be excised
before the beautiful can show itself as it was originally made, morally as
well as formally perfect. How we all wish the sensual, indecent, and brutal,
away from Hogarth, so that we might show him to the purest virgin without
fear or blushing.

Sophon. And as well from Shakspere. Rotten members, though small in
themselves, are yet large enough to taint the whole body. And those
impurities, like rank growths of vine, may be lopped away without injuring
any vital principle. In perfect art the utmost purity of intention, design,
and execution, alone is wisdom. Every tree—every flower, in defiance
of adverse contingencies, grows with perfect will to be perfect: and, shall
man, who hath what they have not, a soul wherewith he may defy all ill, do
less?

Kosmon. But how may this purity be attained? I see every where close
round the pricks; not a single step may be taken in advance without wounding
something vital. Corruption strews thick both earth and ocean; it is only
the heavens that are pure, and man cannot live upon manna alone.

Christian. Kosmon, you would seem to mistake what Sophon and I mean.
Neither he nor I wish nature to be used less, or otherwise than as it
appears; on the contrary, we wish it used more—more directly. Nature
itself is comparatively pure; all that we desire is the removal of the
factitious matter that the vice of fashion, evil hearts, and infamous
desires, graft upon it. It is not simple innocent nature that we would
exile, but the devilish and libidinous corruptions that sully nature.

Kalon. But, if your ideas were strictly carried out, there would be but
little of worth left in the world for the artist to use; for, if 152 I understand you rightly, you object to his
making use of any passion, whether heroic, patriotic, or loving, that is not
rigidly virtuous.

Christian. I do. Without he has a didactic aim; like as Hogarth had. A
picture, poem, or statue, unless it speaks some purpose, is mere paint,
paper, or stone. A work of art must have a purpose, or it is not a work of
fine art: thus, then, if it be a work of fine art, it has a purpose;
and, having purpose, it has either a good or an evil one: there is no
alternative. An artist's works are his children, his immortal heirs, to his
evil as well as to his good; as he hath trained them, so will they teach.
Let him ask himself why does a parent so tenderly rear his children. Is it
not because he knows that evil is evil, whether it take the shape of angels
or devils? And is not the parent's example worthy of the artist's imitation?
What advantage has a man over a child? Is there any preservative peculiar to
manhood that it alone may see and touch sin, and yet be not defiled? Verily,
there is none! All mere battles, assassinations, immolations, horrible
deaths, and terrible situations used by the artist solely to
excite,—every passion degrading to man's perfect nature,—should
certainly be rejected, and that unhesitatingly.

Sophon.—Suffer me to extend the just conclusions of Christian.
Art—true art—fine art—cannot be either coarse or low.
Innocent-like, no taint will cling to it, and a smock frock is as pure as
“virginal-chaste robes.” And,—sensualism, indecency, and
brutality, excepted—sin is not sin, if not in the act; and, in satire,
with the same exceptions, even sin in the act is tolerated when used to
point forcibly a moral crime, or to warn society of a crying shame which it
can remedy.

Kalon. But, my dear Sophon,—and you, Christian,—you do not
condemn the oak because of its apples; and, like them, the sin in the poem,
picture, or statue, may be a wormy accretion grafted from without. The
spectator often makes sin where the artist intended none. For instance, in
the nude,—where perhaps, the poet, painter, or sculptor, imagines he
has embodied only the purest and chastest ideas and forms, the sensualist
sees—what he wills to see; and, serpent-like, previous to devouring
his prey, he covers it with his saliva.

Christian. The Circean poison, whether drunk from the clearest crystal or
the coarsest clay, alike intoxicates and makes beasts of men. Be assured
that every nude figure or nudity introduced in a poem, picture, or piece of
sculpture, merely on physical grounds, and only for effect, is vicious. And,
where it is boldly introduced and forms the central idea, it ought never to
have a sense 153 of its condition: it is not
nudity that is sinful, but the figure's knowledge of its nudity,(too surely
communicated by it to the spectator,) that makes it so. Eve and Adam before
their fall were not more utterly shameless than the artist ought to make his
inventions. The Turk believes that, at the judgment-day, every artist will
be compelled to furnish, from his own soul, soul for every one of his
creations. This thought is a noble one, and should thoroughly awake poet,
painter, and sculptor, to the awful responsibilities they labour under. With
regard to the sensualist,—who is omnivorous, and swine-like,
assimilates indifferently pure and impure, degrading everything he hears or
sees,—little can be said beyond this; that for him, if the artist
be without sin, he is not answerable. But in this responsibility he
has two rigid yet just judges, God and himself;—let him answer there
before that tribunal. God will acquit or condemn him only as he can acquit
or condemn himself.

Kalon. But, under any circumstance, beautiful nude flesh beautifully
painted must kindle sensuality; and, described as beautifully in poetry, it
will do the like, almost, if not quite, as readily. Sculpture is the only
form of art in which it can be used thoroughly pure, chaste, unsullied, and
unsullying. I feel, Christian, that you mean this. And see what you
do!—What a vast domain of art you set a Solomon's seal upon! how
numberless are the poems, pictures, and statues—the most beautiful
productions of their authors—you put in limbo! To me, I confess, it
appears the very top of prudery to condemn these lovely creations, merely
because they quicken some men's pulses.

Kosmon. And, to me, it appears hypercriticism to object to pictures,
poems, and statues, calling them not works of art—or fine
art—because they have no higher purpose than eye or ear-delight. If
this law be held to be good, very few pictures called of the English
school—of the English school, did I say?—very few pictures at
all, of any school, are safe from condemnation: almost all the Dutch must
suffer judgment, and a very large proportion of modern sculpture, poetry,
and music, will not pass. Even “Christabel” and the “Eve
of St. Agnes” could not stand the ordeal.

Christian. Oh, Kalon, you hardly need an answer! What! shall the artist
spend weeks and months, nay, sometimes years, in thought and study,
contriving and perfecting some beautiful invention,—in order only that
men's pulses may be quickened? What!—can he, jesuit-like, dwell in the
house of soul, only to discover where to sap her
foundations?—Satan-like, does he turn his angel of light into a fiend
of darkness, and use his God-delegated might against its giver, making
Astartes and Molochs to draw other thousands 154 of innocent lives into the embrace of sin? And as for
you, Kosmon, I regard purpose as I regard soul; one is not more the light of
the thought than the other is the light of the body; and both, soul and
purpose, are necessary for a complete intellect; and intellect, of the
intellectual—of which the fine arts are the capital members—is
not more to be expected than demanded. I believe that most of the pictures
you mean are mere natural history paintings from the animal side of man. The
Dutchmen may, certainly, go Letheward; but for their colour, and subtleties
of execution, they would not be tolerated by any man of taste.

Sophon. Christian here, I think, is too stringent. Though walls be
necessary round our flower gardens to keep out swine and other vile
cattle—yet I can see no reason why, with excluding beasts, we should
also exclude light and air. Purpose is purpose or not, according to the
individual capacity to assimilate it. Different plants require different
soils, and they will rather die than grow on unfriendly ones; it is the same
with animals; they endure existence only through their natural food; and
this variety of soils, plants, and vegetables, is the world less man. But
man, as well as the other created forms, is subject to the same law: he
takes only that aliment he can digest. It is sufficient with some men that
their sensoria be delighted with pleasurable and animated grouping, colour,
light, and shade: this feeling or desire of their's is, in itself,
thoroughly innocent: it is true, it is not a great burden for them to carry;
no, but it is the lightness of the burden that is the merit; for thereby,
their step is quickened and not clogged, their intellect is exhilarated and
not oppressed. Thus, then, a purpose is secured, from a picture or
poem or statue, which may not have in it the smallest particle of what
Christian and I think necessary for it to possess; he reckons a poem,
picture, or statue, to be a work of fine art by the quality and quantity of
thought it contains, by the mental leverage it possesses wherewith to move
his mind, by the honey which he may hive, and by the heavenly manna he may
gather therefrom.

Kosmon. Christian wants art like Magdalen Hospitals, where the windows
are so contrived that all of earth is excluded, and only heaven is seen.
Wisdom is not only shown in the soul, but also in the body: the bones,
nerves, and muscles, are quite as wonderful in idea as is the incorporeal
essence which rules them. And the animal part of man wants as much caring
for as the spiritual: God made both, and is equally praised through each.
And men's souls are as much touchable and teachable through their animal
feelings as ever they are through their mental aspirations; this both
Orpheus and Amphion knew when they, with their music, made towns to rise in
155 savage woods by savage hands. And hence, in
that light, nothing is without a purpose; and I maintain,—if they give
but the least glimpse of happiness to a single human being,—that even
the Dutch masters are useful, I believe that the thought-wrapped
philosopher, who, in his close-pent study, designs some valuable blessing
for his lower and more animal brethren, only pursues the craving of his
nature; and that his happiness is no higher than their's in their several
occupations and delights. Sight and sense are fully as powerful for
happiness as thought and ratiocination. Nature grows flowers wherever she
can; she causes sweet waters to ripple over stony beds, and living wells to
spring up in deserts, so that grass and herbs may grow and afford
nourishment to some of God's creatures. Even the granite and the lava
must put forth blossoms.

Kalon. Oh Christian, children cannot digest strong meats! Neither can a
blind man be made to see by placing him opposite the sun. The sound of the
violin is as innocent as that of the organ. And, though there be a wide
difference in the sacredness of the occupations, yet dance, song, and the
other amusements common to society, are quite as necessary to a healthy
condition of the mind and body, as is to the soul the pursuit and daily
practice of religion. The healthy condition of the mind and body is, after
all, the happy life; and whether that life be most mental or most animal it
matters little, even before God, so long as its delights, amusements, and
occupations, be thoroughly innocent and chaste.

Christian. So long as the pursuits, pastimes, and pleasures of mankind be
innocent and chaste,—with you all, heartily, I believe it matters
little how or in what form they be enjoyed. Pure water is certainly equally
pure, whether it trickle from the hill-side or flow through crystal
conduits; and equally refreshing whether drunk from the iron bowl or the
golden goblet;—only the crystal and gold will better please some
natures than the hill-side and the iron. I know also that a star may give
more light than the moon,—but that is up in its own heavens and not
here on earth. I know that it is not light and shade which make a complete
globe, but, as well, the local and neutral tints. Thus, my friends, you
perceive that I am neither for building a wall, nor for contriving windows
so as to exclude light, air, and earth. As much as any of you, I am for
every man's sitting under his own vine, and for his training, pruning, and
eating its fruit how he pleases. Let the artist paint, write, or carve, what
and how he wills, teach the world through sense or through thought,—I
will not dissent; I have no patent to entitle me to do so; nay, I will be
thoroughly satisfied with whatsoever he does, so long as it is pure,
unsensual, and earnestly true. But, as the mental 156 is the peculiar feature that places man apart from and
above animals,—so ought all that he does to be apart from and above
their nature; especially in the fine arts, which are the intellectual
perfection of the intellectual. And nothing short of this intellectual
perfection,—however much they may be pictures, poems, statues, or
music,—can rank such works to be works of Fine Art. They may have
merit,—nay, be useful, and hence, in some sort, have a purpose: but
they are as much works of Fine Art as Babel was the Temple of Solomon.

Sophon. And man can be made to understand these truths—can be drawn
to crave for and love the fine arts: it is only to take him in hand as we
would take some animal—tenderly using it—entreating it, as it
were, to do its best—to put forth all its powers with all its capable
force and beauty. Nor is it so very difficult a task to raise, in the low,
conceptions of things high: the mass of men have a fine appreciation of God
and his goodness: and as active, charitable, and sympathetic a nurture in
the beautiful and true as they have given to them in religion, would as
surely and swiftly raise in them an equally high appreciation of the fine
arts. But, if the artist would essay such a labour, he must show them what
fine art is: and, in order to do this effectually, as an architect clears
away from some sacred edifice which he restores the shambles and shops,
which, like filthy toads cowering on a precious monument, have squatted
themselves round its noble proportions; so must he remove from his
art-edifice the deformities which hide—the corruptions which shame
it.

Christian. How truly Sophon speaks a retrospective look will show. The
disfigurements which both he and I deplore are strictly what he compared
them to; they are shambles and shops grafted on a sacred edifice. Still,
indigenous art is sacred and devoted to religious purposes: this keeps it
pure for a time; but, like a stream travelling and gathering other streams
as it goes through wide stretches of country to the sea, it receives greater
and more numerous impurities the farther it gets from its source, until, at
last, what was, in its rise, a gentle rilling through snows and over whitest
stones, roars into the ocean a muddy and contentious river. Men soon long to
touch and taste all that they see; savage-like, him whom to-day they deem a
god and worship, they on the morrow get an appetite for and kill, to eat and
barter. And thus art is degraded, made a thing of carnal desire—a
commodity of the exchange. Yes, Sophon, to be instructive, to become a
teaching instrument, the art-edifice must be cleansed from its abominations;
and, with them, must the artist sweep out the improvements and ruthless
restorations that hang on it like formless botches on peopled tapestry. The
157 multitude must be brought to stand face to
face with the pious and earnest builders, to enjoy the severely simple,
beautiful, aspiring, and solemn temple, in all its first purity, the same as
they bequeathed it to them as their posterity.

Kalon. The peasant, upon acquaintance, quickly prefers wheaten bread to
the black and sour mass that formerly served him: and when true jewels are
placed before him, counterfeit ones in his eyes soon lose their lustre, and
become things which he scorns. The multitude are teachable—teachable
as a child; but, like a child, they are self-willed and obstinate, and will
learn in their own way, or not at all. And, if the artist wishes to raise
them unto a fit audience, he must consult their very waywardness, or his
work will be a Penelope's web of done and undone: he must be to them not
only cords of support staying their every weakness against sin and
temptation, but also, tendrils of delight winding around them. But I cannot
understand why regeneration can flow to them through sacred art alone. All
pure art is sacred art. And the artist having soul as well as
nature—the lodestar as well as the lodestone—to steer his path
by—and seeing that he must circle earth—it matters little from
what quarter he first points his course; all that is necessary is that he go
as direct as possible, his knowledge keeping him from quicksands and sunken
rocks.

Christian. Yes, Kalon;—and, to compare things humble—though
conceived in the same spirit of love—with things mighty, the artist,
if he desires to inform the people thoroughly, must imitate Christ, and,
like him, stoop down to earth and become flesh of their flesh; and his work
should be wrought out with all his soul and strength in the same world-broad
charity, and truth, and virtue, and be, for himself as well as for them, a
justification for his teaching. But all art, simply because it is pure and
perfect, cannot, for those grounds alone, be called sacred: Christian, it
may, and that justly; for only since Christ taught have morals been
considered a religion. Christian and sacred art bear that relation to each
other that the circle bears to its generating point; the first is only
volume, the last is power: and though the first—as the world includes
God—includes with it the last, still, the last is the greatest, for it
makes that which includes it: thus all pure art is Christian, but not all is
sacred. Christian art comprises the earth and its humanities, and, by
implication, God and Christ also; and sacred art is the emanating
idea—the central causating power—the jasper throne, whereon
sits Christ, surrounded by the prophets, apostles, and saints, administering
judgement, wisdom, and holiness. In this sense, then, the art you would call
sacred is not sacred, but Christian: and, as all perfect art158 is Christian, regeneration necessarily can
only flow thence; and thus it is, as you say, that, from whatever quarter
the artist steers his course, he steers aright.

Kosmon. And, Christian, is a return to this sacred or Christian art by
you deemed possible? I question it. How can you get the art of one age to
reflect that of another, when the image to be reflected is without the angle
of reflection? The sun cannot be seen of us when it is night! and that class
of art has got its golden age too remote—its night too long
set—for it to hope ever to grasp rule again, or again to see its day
break upon it. You have likened art to a river rising pure, and rolling a
turbid volume into the ocean. I have a comparison equally just. The career
of one artist contains in itself the whole of art-history; its every phase
is presented by him in the course of his life. Savage art is beheld in his
childish scratchings and barbarous glimmerings; Indian, Egyptian, and
Assyrian art in his boyish rigidity and crude fixedness of idea and purpose;
Mediæval, or pre-Raffaelle art is seen in his youthful timid darings,
his unripe fancies oscillating between earth and heaven; there where we
expect truth, we see conceit; there where we want little, much is
given—now a blank eyed riddle,—dark with excess of
self,—now a giant thought—vast but repulsive,—and now
angel visitors startling us with wisdom and touches of heavenly beauty.
Every where is seen exactness; but it is the exactness of hesitation, and
not of knowledge—the line of doubt, and not of power: all the promises
for ripeness are there; but, as yet, all are immature. And mature art is
presented when all these rude scaffoldings are thrown down—when the
man steps out of the chrysalis a complete idea—both Psyche and
Eros—free-thoughted, free-tongued, and free-handed;—a being
whose soul moves through the heavens and the earth—now choiring it
with angels—and now enthroning it, bay-crowned, among the
men-kings;—whose hand passes over all earth, spreading forth its
beauties unerring as the seasons—stretches through cloudland,
revealing its delectable glories, or, eagle-like, soars right up against the
sun;—or seaward goes seizing the cresting foam as it leaps—the
ships and their crews as they wallow in the watery valleys, or climb their
steeps, or hang over their flying ridges:—daring and doing all
whatsoever it shall dare to do, with boundless fruitfulness of idea, and
power, and line; that is mature art—art of the time of Phidias, of
Raffaelle, and of Shakspere. And, Christian, in preferring the art of the
period previous to Raffaelle to the art of his time, you set up the worse
for the better, elevate youth above manhood, and tell us that the
half-formed and unripe berry is wholesomer than the perfect and ripened
fruit.

159

Christian. Kosmon, your thoughts seduce you; or rather, your nature
prefers the full and rich to the exact and simple: you do not go deep
enough—do not penetrate beneath the image's gilt overlay, and see that
it covers only worm-devoured wood. Your very comparison tells against you.
What you call ripeness, others, with as much truth, may call over-ripeness,
nay, even rottenness; when all the juices are drunk with their lusciousness,
sick with over-sweetness. And the art which you call youthful and
immature—may be, most likely is, mature and wholesome in the same
degree that it is tasteful, a perfect round of beautiful, pure, and good.
You call youth immature; but in what does it come short of manhood. Has it
not all that man can have,—free, happy, noble, and spiritual thoughts?
And are not those thoughts newer, purer, and more unselfish in the youth
than in the man? What eye has the man, that the youth's is not as
comprehensive, keen, rapid, and penetrating? or what hand, that the youth's
is not as swift, forceful, cunning, and true? And what does the youth gain
in becoming man? Is it freshness, or deepness, or power, or wisdom? nay
rather—is it not languor—the languor of satiety—of
indifferentism? And thus soul-rusted and earth-charmed, what mate is he for
his former youth? Drunken with the world-lees, what can he do but pourtray
nature drunken as well, and consumed with the same fever or stupor that
consumes himself, making up with gilding and filigree what he lacks in truth
and sincerity? and what comparison shall exist here and between what his
youth might or could have done, with a soul innocent and untroubled as
heaven's deep calm of blue, gazing on earth with seraph eyes—looking,
but not longing—or, in the spirit rapt away before the emerald-like
rainbow-crowned throne, witnessing “things that shall be
hereafter,” and drawing them down almost as stainless as he beheld
them? What an array of deep, earnest, and noble thinkers, like angels armed
with a brightness that withers, stand between Giotto and Raffaelle; to
mention only Orcagna, Ghiberti, Masaccio, Lippi, Fra Beato Angelico, and
Francia. Parallel them with post-Raffaelle artists? If you think you
can, you have dared a labour of which the fruit shall be to you as Dead Sea
apples, golden and sweet to the eye, but, in the mouth, ashes and
bitterness. And the Phidian era was a youthful one—the highest and
purest period of Hellenic art: after that time they added no more gods or
heroes, but took for models instead—the Alcibiadeses and Phyrnes, and
made Bacchuses and Aphrodites; not as Phidias would have—clothed with
the greatness of thought, or girded with valour, or veiled with modesty; but
dissolved with the voluptuousness of the bath, naked, wanton, and
shameless.

160

Sophon. You hear, Kosmon, that Christian prefers ripe youth to ripe
manhood: and he is right. Early summer is nobler than early autumn; the head
is wiser than the hand. You take the hand to mean too much: you should not
judge by quantity, or luxuriance, or dexterity, but by quality, chastity,
and fidelity. And colour and tone are only a fair setting to thought and
virtue. Perhaps it is the fate, or rather the duty, of mortals to make a
sacrifice for all things, withheld as well as given. Hand sometimes succumbs
to head, and head in its turn succumbs to hand; the first is the lot of
youth, the last of manhood. The question is—which of the two we can
best afford to do without. Narrowed down to this, I think but very few men
would be found who would not sacrifice in the loss of hand in preference to
its gain at the loss of head.

Kosmon. But, Christian, in advocating a return to this pre-Raffaelle art,
are you not—you yourself—urging the committal of
“ruthless restorations” and “improvements,” new and
vile as any that you have denounced? You tell the artist, that he should
restore the sacred edifice to its first purity—the same as it was
bequeathed by its pious and earnest builders. But can he do this and be
himself original? For myself, I would above all things urge him to study how
to reproduce, and not how to represent—to imitate no past
perfection, but to create for himself another, as beautiful, wise, and true.
I would say to him, “build not on old ground, profaned, polluted, trod
into slough by filthy animals; but break new ground—virgin
ground—ground that thought has never imagined or eye seen, and dig
into our hearts a foundation, deep and broad as our humanity. Let it not be
a temple formed of hands only, but built up of us—us of the
present—body of our body, soul of our soul.”

Christian. When men wish to raise a piece of stone, or to move it along,
they seek for a fulcrum to use their lever from; and, this obtained, they
can place the stone wheresoever they please. And world-perfections come into
existence too slowly for men to reject all the teaching and experience of
their predecessors: the labour of learning is trifling compared to the
labour of finding out; the first implies only days, the last, hundreds of
years. The discovery of the new world without the compass would have been
sheer chance; but with it, it became an absolute certainty. So, and in such
manner, the modern artist seeks to use early mediæval art, as a
fulcrum to raise through, but only as a fulcrum; for he himself holds the
lever, whereby he shall both guide and fix the stones of his art temple; as
experience, which shall be to him a 161 rudder
directing the motion of his ship, but in subordination to his control; and
as a compass, which shall regulate his journey, but which, so far from
taking away his liberty, shall even add to it, because through it his course
is set so fast in the ways of truth as to allow him, undividedly, to give up
his whole soul to the purpose of his voyage, and to steer a wider and freer
path over the trackless, but to him, with his rudder and compass, no longer
the trackless or waste ocean; for, God and his endeavours prospering him,
that shall yield up unto his hands discoveries as man-worthy as any hitherto
beheld by men, or conceived by poets.

Kalon. But, Christian, another artist with equal justness might use
Hellenic art as a means toward making happy discoveries; formatively, there
is nothing in it that is not both beautiful and perfect; and beautiful
things, rainbow-like, are once and for ever beautiful; and the contemplation
and study of its dignified, graceful, and truthful embodiments—which,
by common consent, it only is allowed to possess in an eminent and universal
degree—is full as likely to awaken in the mind of its student as high
revelations of wisdom, and cause him to bear to earth as many perfections
for man, as ever the study of pre-Raffaelle art can reveal or give, through
its votary.

Christian. But beautiful things, to be beautiful in the highest degree,
like the rainbow, must have a spiritual as well as a physical voice. Lovely
as it is, it is not the arch of colours that glows in the heavens of our
hearts; what does, is the inner and invisible sense for which it was set up
of old by God, and of which its many-hued form is only the outward and
visible sign. Thus, beautiful things alone, of themselves, are not
sufficient for this task; to be sufficient they must be as vital with soul
as they are with shape. To be formatively perfect is not enough; they must
also be spiritually perfect, and this not locally but universally.
The art of the Greeks was a local art; and hence, now, it has no spiritual.
Their gods speak to us no longer as gods, or teach us divinely: they have
become mere images of stone—profane embodiments. False to our
spiritual, Hellenic art wants every thing that Christian art is full of.
Sacred and universal, this clasps us, as Abraham's bosom did Lazarus, within
its infinite embraces, causing every fibre of our being to quicken under its
heavenly truths. Ithuriel's golden spear was not more antagonistic to
Satan's loathly transformation—than is Christian opposed to pagan art.
The wide, the awful gulf, separating one from the other, will be felt
instantly in its true force by first thinking ZEUS, and then thinking
CHRIST. How pale, shadowy, and shapeless the vision of lust, 162 revenge, and impotence, that rises at the thought of
Zeus; but at the thought of Christ, how overwhelming the inrush of sublime
and touching realities; what height and depth of love and power; what
humility, and beauty, and immaculate purity are made ours at the mention of
his name; the Saviour, the Intercessor, the Judge, the Resurrection and the
Life. These—these are the divinely awful truths taught by our faith;
and which should also be taught by our art. Hellenic art, like the fig tree
that only bore leaves, withered at Christ's coming; and thus no “happy
discoveries” can flow thence, or “revelations of wisdom,”
or other perfections be borne to earth for man.

Sophon. Christian thinks and says, that if the spiritual be not in
a thing, it cannot be put upon it; and hence, if a work of art be not a god,
it must be a man, or a mere image of one; and that the faith of the Pagan is
the foolishness of the Christian. Nor does he utter unreason; for,
notwithstanding their perfect forms, their gods are not gods to us, but only
perfect forms: Apollo, Theseus, the Ilissus, Aphrodite, Artemis, Psyche, and
Eros, are only shapeful manhood, womanhood, virginhood, and youth, and move
us only by the exact amount of humanity they possess in common with
ourselves. Homer and Æschylus, and Sophocles, and Phidias, live not
by the sacred in them, but by the human: and, but for this common bond,
Hellenic art would have been submerged in the same Lethe that has drowned
the Indian, Egyptian, and Assyrian Theogonies and arts. And, if we except
form, what other thing does Hellenic art offer to the modern artist, that is
not thoroughly opposed to his faith, wants, and practice? And
thought—thought in accordance with all the lines of his knowledge,
temperament, and habits—thought through which he makes and shapes for
men, and is understood by them—it is as destitute of, as inorganic
matter of soul and reason. But Christian art, because of the faith upon
which it is built, suffers under no such drawbacks, for that faith is as
personal and vigorous now as ever it was at its origin—every motion
and principle of our being moves to it like a singing harmony;—it is
the breath which brings out of us, Æolian-harp-like, our most
penetrating and heavenly music—the river of the water of life, which
searches all our dry parts and nourishes them, causing them to spring up and
bear abundantly the happy seed which shall enrich and make fat the earth to
the uttermost parts thereof.

Kalon. With you both I believe, that faith is necessary to a man, and
that without faith sight even is feeble: but I also believe that a man is as
much a part of the religious, moral, and social system in which he lives, as
is a plant of the soil, situation, and 163
climate in which it exists: and that external applications have just as much
power to change the belief of the man, as they have to alter the structure
of the plant. A faith once in a man, it is there always; and, though unfelt
even by himself, works actively: and Hellenic art, so far from being an
impediment to the Christian belief, is the exact reverse; for, it is the
privilege of that belief, through its sublime alchymy, to be able to
transmute all it touches into itself: and the perfect forms of Hellenic art,
so touched, move our souls only the more energetically upwards, because of
their transcendent beauty; for through them alone can we see how wonderfully
and divinely God wrought—how majestic, powerful, and vigorous he made
man—how lovely, soft, and winning, he made woman: and in beholding
these things, we are thankful to him that we are permitted to see
them—not as Pagans, but altogether as Christians. Whether Christian or
Pagan, the highest beauty is still the highest beauty; and the highest
beauty alone, to the total exclusion of gods and their myths, compels our
admiration.

Kosmon. Another thing we ought to remember, when judging Hellenic Art,
is, but for its existence, all other kinds—pre-Raffaelle as
well—could not have had being. The Greeks were, by far, more inclined
to worship nature as contained in themselves, than the gods,—if the
gods are not reflexes of themselves, which is most likely. And, thus
impelled, they broke through the monstrous symbolism of Egypt, and made them
gods after their own hearts; that is, fashioned them out of themselves. And
herein, I think we may discern something of providence; for, suppose their
natures had not been so powerfully antagonistic to the traditions and
conventions of their religion, what other people in the world could or would
have done their work? Cast about a brief while in your memories, and
endeavor to find whether there has ever existed a people who in their
nature, nationality, and religion, have been so eminently fitted to perform
such a task as the Hellenic? You will then feel that we have reason to be
thankful that they were allowed to do what else had never been done; and,
which not done, all posterity would have suffered to the last throe of time.
And, if they have not made a thorough perfection—a spiritual as well
as a physical one—forget not that, at least, they have made this
physical representation a finished one. They took it from the Egyptians,
rude, clumsy, and seated; its head stony—pinned to its chest; its
hands tied to its side, and its legs joined; they shaped it, beautiful,
majestic, and erect; elevated its head; breathed into it animal fire; gave
movement and action to its arms and hands; opened its legs and made it
walk—made it human at all points—the radical 164 impersonation of physical and sensuous beauty. And, if
the god has receded into the past and become a “pale, shadowy, and
shapeless vision of lust, revenge, and impotence,” the human lives on
graceful, vigorous, and deathless, as at first, and excites in us admiration
as unbounded as ever followed it of old in Greece or Italy.

Christian. Yes, Kosmon, yes! they are flourished all over with the
rhetoric of the body; but nowhere is to be seen in them that diviner poetry,
the oratory of the soul! Truly they are a splendid casket enclosing
nothing—at least nothing now of importance to us; for what they once
contained, the world, when stirred with nobler matter, disregarded, and left
to perish. But, Kosmon, we cannot discuss probabilities. Our question
is—not whether the Greeks only could have made such masterpieces of
nature and art; but whether their works are of that kind the most
fitted to carry forward to a more ultimate perfection that idea which is
peculiarly our's. All art, more or less, is a species of symbolism; and the
Hellenic, notwithstanding its more universal method of typification, was
fully as symbolic as the Egyptian; and hence its language is not only dead,
but forgotten, and is now past recovery: and, if it were not, what purpose
would be served by its republication? For, for whom does the artist work?
The inevitable answer is, “For his nation!” His statue, or
picture, poem, or music, must be made up and out of them; they are at once
his exemplars, his audience, and his worshippers; and he is their mirror in
which they behold themselves as they are: he breathes them vitally as an
atmosphere, and they breathe him. Zeus, Athene, Heracles, Prometheus,
Agamemnon, Orestes, the House of Œdipus, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, and
Antigone, spoke something to the Hellenic nations; woke their piety, pity,
or horror,—thrilled, soothed, or delighted them; but they have no
charm for our ears; for us, they are literally disembodied ghosts, and
voiceless as shapeless. But not so are Christ, and the holy Apostles and
saints, and the Blessed Virgin; and not so is Hamlet, or Richard the Third,
or Macbeth, or Shylock, or the House of Lear, Ophelia, Desdemona, Grisildis,
or Una, or Genevieve. No: they all speak and move real and palpable
before our eyes, and are felt deep down in the heart's core of every
thinking soul among us:—they all grapple to us with holds that only
life will loose. Of all this I feel assured, because, a brief while since,
we agreed together that man could only be raised through an incarnation of
himself. Tacitly, we would also seem to have limited the uses of Hellenic
art to the serving as models of proportion, or as a gradus for form: and,
though I cannot deny them any merit they may have in this respect, still, I
would wish to deal cautiously with them: the artist,—most 165 especially the young one, and who is and would be most
subject to them and open to their influence,—should never have his
soul asleep when his hand is awake; but, like voice and instrument, one
should always accompany the other harmoniously.

Kosmon. But surely you will deal no less cautiously with early
mediæval art. Archaisms are not more tolerable in pictures than they
are in statues, poems, or music; and the archaisms of this kind of art are
so numerous as to be at first sight the most striking feature belonging to
it. Most remarkable among these unnatural peculiarities are gilded
backgrounds, gilded hair, gilded ornaments and borders to draperies and
dresses, the latter's excessive verticalism of lines and tedious involution
of folds, and the childlike passivity of countenance and expression: all of
which are very prominent, and operate as serious drawbacks to their merits;
which—as I have freely admitted—are in truth not a few, nor
mean.

Christian. The artist is only a man, and living with other men in a state
of being called society; and,—though perhaps in a lesser
degree—he is as subject to its influences—its fashions and
customs—as they are. But in this respect his failings may be likened
to the dross which the purest metal in its molten state continually throws
up to its surface, but which is mere excrement, and so little essential that
it can be skimmed away: and, as the dross to the metal, just so little
essential are the archaisms you speak of to the early art, and just so
easily can they be cast aside. But bethink you, Kosmon. Is Hellenic art
without archaisms? And that feature of it held to be its crowning
perfection—its head—is not that a very marked one? And, is it
not so completely opposed to the artist's experience in the forms of nature
that—except in subjects from Greek history and mythology—he
dares not use it—at least without modifying it so as to destroy its
Hellenism?

Sophon. Then Hellenic Art is like a musical bell with a flaw in it;
before it can be serviceable it must be broken up and recast. If its sum of
beauty—its line of lines, the facial angle, must be destroyed—as
it undoubtedly must,—before it can be used for the general purposes of
art, then its claims over early mediæval art, in respect of form, are
small indeed. But is it not altogether a great archaism?

Kalon. Oh, Sophon! weighty as are the reasons urged against Hellenic art
by Christian and yourself, they are not weighty enough to outbalance its
beauty, at least to me: at present they may have set its sun in gloom; yet I
know that that obscuration, like a dark foreground to a bright distance,
will make its rising again only the more surpassingly glorious. I admire its
exquisite creations, because 166 they are
beautiful, and noble, and perfect, and they elevate me because I think them
so; and their silent capabilities, like the stardust of heaven before the
intellectual insight, resolve themselves into new worlds of thoughts and
things so ever as I contemplate their perfections: like a prolonged music,
full of sweet yet melancholy cadences, they have sunk into my heart—my
brain—my soul—never, never to cease while life shall hold with
me. But, for all that, my hands are not full; and, whithersoever the happy
seed shall require me, I am not for withholding plough or spade, planting or
watering; and that which I am called in the spirit to do—will I do
manfully and with my whole strength.

Sophon. Kalon, the conclusion of your speech is better than the
commencement. It is better to sacrifice myrrh and frankincense than virtue
and wisdom, thoughts than deeds. Would that all men were as ready as
yourself to dispark their little selfish enclosures, and burn out all their
hedges of prickly briers and brambles—turning the evil into the
good—the seed-catching into the seed-nourishing. Of the too
consumptions let us prefer the active, benevolent, and purifying one of
fire, to the passive, self-eating, and corrupting one of rust: one half
minute's clear shining may touch some watching and waiting soul, and through
him kindle whole ages of light.

Christian. Men do not stumble over what they know; and the day fades so
imperceptibly into night that were it not for experience, darkness would
surprise us long before we believed the day done: and, in relation to art,
its revolutions are still more imperceptible in their gradations; and, in
fulfilling themselves, they spread over such an extent of time, that in
their knowledge the experience of one artist is next to nothing; and its
twilight is so lengthy, that those who never saw other, believe its gloom to
be day; nor are their successors more aware that the deepening darkness is
the contrary, until night drops big like a great clap of thunder, and awakes
them staringly to a pitiable sense of their condition. But, if we cannot
have this experience through ourselves, we can through others; and that will
show us that Pagan art has once—nay twice—already brought over
Christian art a “darkness which might be felt;” from a little
handful cloud out of the studio of Squarcione, it gathered density and
volume through his scholar Mantegna—made itself a nucleus in the
Academy of the Medici, and thence it issued in such a flood of
“heathenesse” that Italy finally became covered with one vast
deep and thick night of Pagandom. But in every deep there is a lower deep;
and, through the same gods-worship, a night intenser still fell upon art
when the pantomime of David 167 made its
appearance. With these two fearful lessons before his eyes, the modern
artist can have no other than a settled conviction that Pagan art,
Devil-like, glozes but to seduce—tempts but to betray; and hence, he
chooses to avoid that which he believes to be bad, and to follow that which
he holds to be good, and blots out from his eye and memory all art between
the present and its first taint of heathenism, and ascends to the art
previous to Raffaelle; and he ascends thither, not so much for its forms as
he does for its THOUGHT and NATURE—the root and trunk of the art-tree,
of whose numerous branches form is only one—though the most important
one: and he goes to pre-Raffaelle art for those two things, because the
stream at that point is clearer and deeper, and less polluted with animal
impurities, than at any other in its course. And, Kalon and Kosmon, had you
remembered this, and at the same time recollected that the words,
“Nature” and “Thought” express very peculiar ideas
to modern eyes and ears—ideas which are totally unknown to Hellenic
Art—you would have instantly felt, that the artist cannot study from
it things chiefest in importance to him—of which it is destitute, even
as is a shore-driven boulder of life and verdure.

On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of
May

The sun looked over the highest hills,And down in the vales looked he;And sprang up blithe all things of life,And put forth their energy;The flowers creeped out their tender cups,And offered their dewy fee;And rivers and rills they shimmered alongTheir winding ways to the sea;And the little birds their morning songTrilled forth from every tree,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

Lord Thomas he rose and donned his clothes;For he was a sleepless man:And ever he tried to change his thoughts,Yet ever they one way ran.168He to catch the breeze through the apple trees,By the orchard path did stray,Till he was aware of a lady thereCame walking adown that way:Out gushed the song the trees amongThen soared and sank away,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

With eyes down-cast care-slow she came,Heedless of shine or shade,Or the dewy grass that wetted her feet,And heavy her dress all made:Oh trembled the song the trees among,And all at once was stayed,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

Lord Thomas he was a truth-fast knight,And a calm-eyed man was he.He pledged his troth to his mother's maidA damsel of low degree:He spoke her fair, he spoke her trueAnd well to him listened she.He gave her a kiss, she gave him twainAll beneath an apple tree:The little birds trilled, the little birds filledThe air with their melody,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

A goodly sight it was, I ween,This loving couple to see,For he was a tall and a stately man,And a queenly shape had she.With arms each laced round other's waist,Through the orchard paths they treadWith gliding pace, face mixed with face,Yet never a word they said:Oh! soared the song the birds among,And seemed with a rapture sped,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

The dew-wet grass all through they pass,The orchard they compass round;Save words like sighs and swimming eyesNo utterance they found.169Upon his chest she leaned her breast,And nestled her small, small head,And cast a look so sad, that shookHim all with the meaning said:Oh hushed was the song the trees among,As over there sailed a gled,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

Then forth with a faltering voice there came,“Ah would Lord Thomas for theeThat I were come of a lineage high,And not of a low degree.”Lord Thomas her lips with his fingers touched,And stilled her all with his ee':“Dear Ella! Dear Ella!” he said,“Beyond all my ancestryIs this dower of thine—that precious thing,Dear Ella, thy purity.Thee will I wed—lift up thy head—All I have I give to thee—Yes—all that is mine is also thine—My lands and my ancestry.”The little birds sang and the orchard rangWith a heavenly melody,On a Whit-sunday morn in the month of May.

Modern Giants

Yes! there are Giants on the earth in these days; but it is their great
bulk, and the nearness of our view, which prevents us from perceiving their
grandeur. This is how it is that the glory of the present is lost upon the
contemporaries of the greatest men; and, perhaps this was Swift's meaning,
when he said that Gulliver could not discover exactly what it was that
strode among the corn-ridges in the Brobdignagian field: thus, we lose the
brightness of things of our own time in consequence of their proximity.

It is of the development of our individual perceptions, and the
application thereof to a good use, that the writer humbly endeavours to
treat. We will for this purpose take as an example, that which may be held
to indicate the civilization of a period more than any thing else; namely,
the popular perception of the essentials of 170
Poetry; and endeavour to show that while the beauties of old writers are
acknowledged, (tho' not in proportion to the attention of each individual in
his works to nature alone) the modern school is contemned and unconsidered;
and also that much of the active poetry of modern life is neglected by the
majority of the writers themselves.

There seems to be an opinion gaining ground fast, in spite of all the
shaking of conventional heads, that the Poets of the present day are equal
to all others, excepting one: however this may be, it is certain we are not
fair judges, because of the natural reason stated before; and there is
decidedly one great fault in the moderns, that not only do they study models
with which they can never become intimately acquainted, but that they
neglect, or rather reject as worthless, that which they alone can carry on
with perfect success: I mean the knowledge of themselves, and the
characteristics of their own actual living. Thus, if a modern Poet or Artist
(the latter much more culpably errs) seeks a subject exemplifying charity,
he rambles into ancient Greece or Rome, awakening not one half the sympathy
in the spectator, as do such incidents as may be seen in the streets every
day. For instance; walking with a friend the other day, we met an old woman,
exceedingly dirty, restlessly pattering along the kerb of a crowded
thoroughfare, trying to cross: her eyes were always wandering here and
there, and her mouth was never still; her object was evident, but for my own
part, I must needs be fastidious and prefer to allow her to take the risk of
being run over, to overcoming my own disgust. Not so my friend; he marched
up manfully, and putting his arm over the old woman's shoulder, led her
across as carefully as though she were a princess. Of course, I was ashamed:
ashamed! I was frightened; I expected to see the old woman change into a
tall angel and take him off to heaven, leaving me her original shape to
repent in. On recovering my thoughts, I was inclined to take up my friend
and carry him home in triumph, I felt so strong. Why should not this thing
be as poetical as any in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary or any one
else? for, so we look at it with a pure thought, we shall see about it the
same light the Areopagite saw at Jerusalem surround the Holy Virgin, and the
same angels attending and guarding it.

And there is something else we miss; there is the poetry of the things
about us; our railways, factories, mines, roaring cities, steam vessels, and
the endless novelties and wonders produced every day; which if they were
found only in the Thousand and One Nights, or in any poem classical or
romantic, would be gloried over without end; for as the majority of us know
not a bit more about them, 171 but merely their
names, we keep up the same mystery, the main thing required for the surprise
of the imagination.

Next to Poetry, Painting and Music have most power over the mind; and how
do you apply this influence? In what direction is it forced? Why, for the
last, you sit in your drawing-rooms, and listen to a quantity of tinkling of
brazen marches of going to war; but you never see before your very eyes, the
palpable victory of leading nature by her own power, to a conquest of
blessings; and when the music is over, you turn to each other, and
enthusiastically whisper, “How fine!”—You point out to
others, (as if they had no eyes) the sentiment of a flowing river with the
moon on it, as an emblem of the after-peace, but you see not this in the
long white cloud of steam, the locomotive pours forth under the same moon,
rushing on; the perfect type of the same, with the presentment of the
struggle beforehand. The strong engine is never before you, sighing all
night, with the white cloud above the chimney-shaft, escaping like the
spirits Solomon put his seal upon, in the Arabian Tales; these mightier
spirits are bound in a faster vessel; and then let forth, as of little
worth, when their work is done.

The Earth shakes under you, from the footfall of the Genii man has made,
and you groan about the noise. Vast roads draw together the Earth, and you
say how they spoil the prospect, which you never cared a farthing about
before.

You revel in Geology: but in chemistry, the modern science, possessing
thousands of powers as great as any used yet, you see no glory:—the
only thought is so many Acids and Alkalies. You require a metaphor for
treachery, and of course you think of our puny old friend the Viper; but the
Alkaline, more searching and more unknown, that may destroy you and your
race, you have never heard of,—and yet this possesses more of the very
quality required, namely, mystery, than any other that is in your hands.

The only ancient character you have retained in its proper force is Love;
but you seem never to see any light about the results of long labour of
mind, the most intense Love. Devotedness, magnanimity, generosity, you seem
to think have left the Earth since the Crusades. In fact, you never go out
into Life: living only in the past world, you go on repeating in new
combinations the same elements for the same effect. You have taught an
enlightened Public, that the province of Poetry is to reproduce the
Ancients; not as Keats did, with the living heart of our own Life; but so as
to cause the impression that you are not aware that they had wives and
families like yourselves, and laboured and rested like us all.

The greatest, perhaps, of modern poets seeming to take refuge 172 from this, has looked into the heart of man, and
shown you its pulsations, fears, self-doubts, hates, goodness, devotedness,
and noble world-love; this is not done under pretty flowers of metaphor in
the lispings of a pet parson, or in the strong but uncertain fashion of the
American school; still less in the dry operose quackery of professed doctors
of psychology, mere chaff not studied from nature, and therefore worthless,
never felt, and therefore useless; but with the firm knowing hand of the
anatomist, demonstrating and making clear to others, that the knowledge may
be applied to purpose. All this difficult task is achieved so that you may
read till your own soul is before you, and you know it; but the enervated
public complains that the work is obscure forsooth: so we are always looking
for green grass—verdant meads, tall pines, vineyards, etc., as the
essentials of poetry; these are all very pretty and very delicate, the dust
blows not in your eyes, but Chaucer has told us all this, and while it was
new, far better than any one else; why are we not to have something besides?
Let us see a little of the poetry of man's own works,—“Visibly
in his garden walketh God.”

The great portion of the public take a morbid delight in such works as
Frankenstein, that “Poor, impossible monster abhorred,” who
would be disgusting if he were not so extremely ludicrous: and all this
search after impossible mystery, such trumpery! growing into the popular
taste, is fed with garbage; doing more harm than all the preachings and
poundings of optimistic Reviews will be able to remedy in an hundred
years.

The study of such matters as these does other harm than merely poisoning
the mind in one direction; it renders us sceptical of virtue in others, and
we lose the power of pure perception. So —reading the glorious tale of
Griselda and looking about you, you say there never was such a woman; your
wise men say she was a fool; are there no such fools round about you? pray
look close:—so the result of this is, you see no lesson in such
things, or at least cannot apply it, and therefore the powers of the author
are thrown away. Do you think God made Boccaccio and Chaucer to amuse you in
your idle hours, only that you might sit listening like crowned idiots, and
then debate concerning their faithfulness to truth? You never can imagine
but they knew more of nature than any of us, or that they had less reverence
for her.

In reference to Painting, the Public are taught to look with delight upon
murky old masters, with dismally demoniac trees, and dull 173 waters of lead, colourless and like ice; upon rocks
that make geologists wonder, their angles are so impossible, their fractures
are so new. Thousands are given for uncomfortable Dutch sun-lights; but if
you are shown a transcript of day itself, with the purple shadow upon the
mountains, and across the still lake, you know nothing of it because your
fathers never bought such: so you look for nothing in it; nay, let me set
you in the actual place, let the water damp your feet, stand in the chill of
the shadow itself, and you will never tell me the colour on the hill, or
where the last of the crows caught the sinking sunlight. Letting observation
sleep, what can you know of nature? and you are a judge of landscape
indeed. So it is that the world is taught to think of nature, as seen
through other men's eyes, without any reference to its own original powers
of perception, and much natural beauty is lost.

To the Castle Ramparts

The Castle is erect on the hill's top,To moulder there all day and night: it standsWith the long shadow lying at its foot.That is a weary height which you must climbBefore you reach it; and a dizzinessTurns in your eyes when you look down from it,So standing clearly up into the sky.

I rose one day, having a mind to see it.'Twas on a clear Spring morning, and a blackbirdAwoke me with his warbling near my window:My dream had fashioned this into a songThat some one with grey eyes was singing me,And which had drawn me so into myselfThat all the other shapes of sleep were gone:And then, at last, it woke me, as I said.The sun shone fully in on me; and briskCool airs, that had been cold but for his warmth,Blow thro' the open casement, and sweet smellsOf flowers with the dew yet fresh upon them,—Rose-buds, and showery lilacs, and what stayedOf April wallflowers.

174I set early forth,Wishing to reach the Castle when the heatShould weigh upon it, vertical at noon.My path lay thro' green open fields at first,With now and then trees rising statelilyOut of the grass; and afterwards came lanesClosed in by hedges smelling of the may,And overshadowed by the meeting trees.So I walked on with none but pleasant thoughts;The Spring was in me, not alone around me,And smiles came rippling o'er my lips for nothing.I reached at length,—issuing from a laneWhich wound so that it seemed about to endAlways, yet ended not for a long while,—A space of ground thick grassed and level toThe overhanging sky and the strong sun:Before me the brown sultry hill stood out,Peaked by its rooted Castle, like a partOf its own self. I laid me in the grass,Turning from it, and looking on the sky,And listening to the humming in the airThat hums when no sound is; because I choseTo gaze on that which I had left, not thatWhich I had yet to see. As one who strivesAfter some knowledge known not till he sought,Whose soul acquaints him that his step by stepHas led him to a few steps next the end,Which he foresees already, waits a littleBefore he passes onward, gatheringTogether in his thoughts what he has done.

Rising after a while, the ascent began.Broken and bare the soil was; and thin grass,Dry and scarce green, was scattered here and thereIn tufts: and, toiling up, my knees almostReaching my chin, one hand upon my knee,Or grasping sometimes at the earth, I went,With eyes fixed on the next step to be taken,Not glancing right or left; till, at the end,I stood straight up, and the tower stood straight upBefore my face. One tower, and nothing more;For all the rest has gone this way and that,And is not anywhere, saving a few175Fragments that lie about, some on the top,Some fallen half down on either side the hill,Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground.The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with greenPatches of mildew and of ivy wovenOver the sightless loopholes and the sides:And from the ivy deaf-coiled spiders dangle,Or scurry to catch food; and their fine websTouch at your face wherever you may pass.The sun's light scorched upon it; and a fryOf insects in one spot quivered for ever,Out and in, in and out, with glancing wingsThat caught the light, and buzzings here and there;That little life which swarms about large death;No one too many or too few, but eachOrdained, and being each in its own place.The ancient door, cut deep into the wall,And cramped with iron rusty now and rotten,Was open half: and, when I strove to move itThat I might have free passage inwards, stoodUnmoved and creaking with old uselessness:So, pushing it, I entered, while the dustWas shaken down upon me from all sides.The narrow stairs, lighted by scanty streaksThat poured in thro' the loopholes pierced high up,Wound with the winding tower, until I gained,Delivered from the closeness and the dampAnd the dim air, the outer battlements.

There opposite, the tower's black turret-girthSuppressed the multiplied steep chasm of fathoms,So that immediately the fields far downLay to their heaving distance for the eyes,Satisfied with one gaze unconsciously,To pass to glory of heaven, and to know light.Here was no need of thinking:—merely senseWas found sufficient: the wind made me free,Breathed, and returned by me in a hard breath:And what at first seemed silence, being rousedBy callings of the cuckoo from far off,Resolved itself into a sound of treesThat swayed, and into chirps reciprocalOn each side, and revolving drone of flies.

176Then, stepping to the brink, and looking sheerTo where the slope ceased in the level stretchOf country, I sat down to lay my headBackwards into a single ivy-bushComplex of leaf. I lay there till the windBlew to me, from a church seen miles away,Half the hour's chimes.

Great clouds were arched abroadLike angels' wings; returning beneath which,I lingered homewards. All their forms had mergedAnd loosened when my walk was ended; and,While yet I saw the sun a perfect disc,There was the moon beginning in the sky.

Pax Vobis

'Tis of the Father Hilary.He strove, but could not pray: so tookThe darkened stair, where his feet shookA sad blind echo. He kept upSlowly. 'Twas a chill sway of airThat autumn noon within the stair,Sick, dizzy, like a turning cup.His brain perplexed him, void and thin:He shut his eyes and felt it spin;The obscure deafness hemmed him in.He said: “the air is calm outside.”

He leaned unto the galleryWhere the chime keeps the night and day:It hurt his brain,—he could not pray.He had his face upon the stone:Deep 'twixt the narrow shafts, his eyePassed all the roofs unto the skyWhose greyness the wind swept alone.Close by his feet he saw it shakeWith wind in pools that the rains make:The ripple set his eyes to ache.He said, “Calm hath its peace outside.”

177He stood within the mysteryGirding God's blessed Eucharist:The organ and the chaunt had ceased:A few words paused against his ear,Said from the altar: drawn round him,The silence was at rest and dim.He could not pray. The bell shook clearAnd ceased. All was great awe,—the breathOf God in man, that warrantethWholly the inner things of Faith.He said: “There is the world outside.”

Ghent: Church of St. Bavon.

A Modern Idyl

“Pride clings to age, for few and withered powers,Which fall on youth in pleasures manifold,Like some bright dancer with a crowd of flowersAnd scented presents more than she can hold:

“Or as it were a child beneath a tree,Who in his healthy joy holds hand and capBeneath the shaken boughs, and eagerlyExpects the fruit to fall into his lap.”

So thought I while my cousin sat alone,Moving with many leaves in under tone,And, sheened as snow lit by a pale moonlight,Her childish dress struck clearly on the sight:That, as the lilies growing by her sideCasting their silver radiance forth with pride,She seemed to dart an arrowy halo round,Brightening the spring time trees, brightening the ground;And beauty, like keen lustre from a star,Glorified all the garden near and far.The sunlight smote the grey and mossy wallWhere, 'mid the leaves, the peaches one and all,Most like twin cherubim entranced above,Leaned their soft cheeks together, pressed in love.

178As the child sat, the tendrils shook round her;And, blended tenderly in middle air,Gleamed the long orchard through the ivied gate:And slanting sunbeams made the heart elate,Startling it into gladness like the sound,—Which echo childlike mimicks faintly roundBlending it with the lull of some far flood,—Of one long shout heard in a quiet wood.A gurgling laugh far off the fountain sent,As if the mermaid shape that in it bentSpoke with subdued and faintest melody:And birds sang their whole hearts spontaneously.

When from your books released, pass here your hours,Dear child, the sweet companion of these flowers,These poplars, scented shrubs, and blossomed boughsOf fruit-trees, where the noisy sparrows house,Shaking from off the leaves the beaded dew.Now while the air is warm, the heavens blue,Give full abandonment to all your gaySwift childlike impulses in rompish play;—The while your sisters in shrill laughter shout,Whirling above the leaves and round about,—Until at length it drops behind the wall,—With awkward jerks, the particoloured ball:Winning a smile even from the stooping ageOf that old matron leaning on her page,Who in the orchard takes a stroll or two,Watching you closely yet unseen by you.

Then, tired of gambols, turn into the darkFir-skirted margins of your father's park;And watch the moving shadows, as you pass,Trace their dim network on the tufted grass,And how on birch-trunks smooth and branches old,The velvet moss bursts out in green and gold,Like the rich lustre full and manifoldOn breasts of birds that star the curtained gloomFrom their glass cases in the drawing room.Mark the spring leafage bend its tender sprayGracefully on the sky's aërial grey;And listen how the birds so volubleSing joyful pæans winding to a swell,179And how the wind, fitful and mournful, grievesIn gusty whirls among the dry red leaves;And watch the minnows in the water cool,And floating insects wrinkling all the pool.

So in your ramblings bend your earnest eyes.High thoughts and feelings will come unto you,—Gladness will fall upon your heart like dew,—Because you love the earth and love the skies.

Fair pearl, the pride of all our family:Girt with the plenitude of joys so strong,Fashion and custom dull can do no wrong:Nestling your young face thus on Nature's knee.

“Jesus Wept”

Mary rose up, as one in sleep might rise,And went to meet her brother's Friend: and theyWho tarried with her said: “she goes to prayAnd weep where her dead brother's body lies.”So, with their wringing of hands and with sighs,They stood before Him in the public way.“Had'st Thou been with him, Lord, upon that day,He had not died,” she said, drooping her eyes.Mary and Martha with bowed faces keptHolding His garments, one on each side.—“WhereHave ye laid him?” He asked. “Lord, come and
see.”The sound of grieving voices heavilyAnd universally was round Him there,A sound that smote His spirit. Jesus wept.

180

Sonnets for Pictures

1. For a Virgin and Child, by Hans
Memmelinck; in the Academy of Bruges

Mystery: God, Man's Life, born into manOf woman. There abideth on her browThe ended pang of knowledge, the which nowIs calm assured. Since first her task began,She hath known all. What more of anguish thanEndurance oft hath lived through, the whole spaceThrough night till night, passed weak upon her faceWhile like a heavy flood the darkness ran?All hath been told her touching her dear Son,And all shall be accomplished. Where he sitsEven now, a babe, he holds the symbol fruitPerfect and chosen. Until God permits,His soul's elect still have the absoluteHarsh nether darkness, and make painful moan.

2. A Marriage of St. Katharine, by
the same; in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges.

Mystery: Katharine, the bride of Christ.She kneels, and on her hand the holy ChildSetteth the ring. Her life is sad and mild,Laid in God's knowledge—ever unenticedFrom Him, and in the end thus fitly priced.Awe, and the music that is near her, wroughtOf Angels, hath possessed her eyes in thought:Her utter joy is her's, and hath sufficed.There is a pause while Mary Virgin turnsThe leaf, and reads. With eyes on the spread book,That damsel at her knees reads after her.John whom He loved and John His harbingerListen and watch. Whereon soe'er thou look,The light is starred in gems, and the gold burns.

181

3. A Dance of Nymphs, by Andrea
Mantegna; in the Louvre.

(It is necessary to mention, that this picture would appear to have been
in the artist's mind an allegory, which the modern spectator may seek vainly
to interpret.)

Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed may beThe meaning reached him, when this music rangSharp through his brain, a distinct rapid pang,And he beheld these rocks and that ridg'd sea.But I believe he just leaned passively,And felt their hair carried across his faceAs each nymph passed him; nor gave ear to traceHow many feet; nor bent assuredlyHis eyes from the blind fixedness of thoughtTo see the dancers. It is bitter gladEven unto tears. Its meaning filleth it,A portion of most secret life: to wit:—Each human pulse shall keep the sense it hadWith all, though the mind's labour run to nought.

4. A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione;
in the Louvre.

(In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the
grass, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well
hard by, for water.)

Water, for anguish of the solstice,—yea,Over the vessel's mouth still wideningListlessly dipt to let the water inWith slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away,The heat lies silent at the brink of day.Now the hand trails upon the viol-stringThat sobs; and the brown faces cease to sing,Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes strayIn distance; through her lips the pipe doth creepAnd leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grassIs cool against her naked flesh. Let be:Do not now speak unto her lest she weep,—Nor name this ever. Be it as it was:—Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.

182

5. “Angelica rescued from the
Sea-monster,” by Ingres; in the Luxembourg.

A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim:One rock-point standing buffetted alone,Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,Hell-spurge of geomaunt and teraphim:A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,Leaning into the hollow with loose hairAnd throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt.Under his lord, the griffin-horse ramps blindWith rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stemThrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,The evil length of body chafes at fault.She doth not hear nor see—she knows of them.

6. The same.

Clench thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl:Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and takeOne breath for all: thy life is keen awake,—Thou may'st not swoon. Was that the scattered whirlOf its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curlAnd split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?—Or was it his the champion's blood to flakeThy flesh?—Or thine own blood's anointing, girl?........Now, silence; for the sea's is such a soundAs irks not silence; and except the sea,All is now still. Now the dead thing doth ceaseTo writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and sheCast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,Again a woman in her nakedness.

183

Papers of “The M. S. Society”

No. IV. Smoke.

I'm the king of the Cadaverals,I'm Spectral President;And, all from east to occident,There's not a man whose dermal wallsContain so narrow intervals,So lank a resident.

Look at me and you shall seeThe ghastliest of the ghastly;The eyes that have watched a thousand years,The forehead lined with a thousand cares,The seaweed-character of hairs!—You shall see and you shall see,Or you may hear, as I can feel,When the winds batter, how these parchments
clatter,And the beautiful tenor that's ever ringingWhen thro' the Seaweed the breeze is singing:And you should know, I know a great deal,When the bacchi arcanum I clutch and gripe,I know a great deal of wind and weatherBy hearing my own cheeks slap togetherA-pulling up a pipe.

I believe—and I conceiveI'm an authorityIn all things ghastly,First for tenuityFor stringiness secondly,And sallowness lastly—I say I believe a cadaverous manWho would live as long and as lean as he canShould live entirely on bacchi—On the bacchic ambrosia entirely feed him;When living thus, so little lack I,So easy am I, I'll never heed himWho anything seeketh beyond the Leaf:For, what with mumbling pipe-ends freely,And snuffing the ashes now and then,I give it as my firm beliefOne might go living on genteellyTo the age of an antediluvian.

184This from the king to each spectral Grim—Mind, we address no bibbing smoker!Tell not us 'tis as broad as it's long,We've no breadth more than a leathern thongTanned—or a tarnished poker:Ye are also lank and slim?—Your king he comes of an ancient lineWhich “length without breadth” the Gods
define,And look ye follow him!Lanky lieges! the Gods one dayWill cut off this line, as geometers say,Equal to any given line:—PI,—PE—their hands divineDo more than we can see:They cut off every length of clayReally in a most extraordinary way—They fill your bowls up—Dutch C'naster,Shag, York River—fill 'em faster,Fill 'em faster up, I say.What Turkey, Oronoko, Cavendish!There's the fuel to make a chafing dish,A chafing dish to peel the pettyPaint that girls and boys call pretty—Peel it off from lip and cheek:We've none such here; yet, if ye seekAn infallible test for a raw beginner,Mundungus will always discover a sinner.

Now ye are charged, we give the wordLight! and pour it thro' your noses,And let it hover and lodge in your hairBird-like, bird-like—You're awareAnacreon had a bird—A bird! and filled his bowl with roses.Ha ha! ye laugh in ghastlywise,And the smoke comes through your eyes,And you're looking very grim,And the air is very dim,And the casual paper flareTaketh still a redder glare.

Now thou pretty little fellow,Now thine eyes are turning yellow,Thou shalt be our page to-night!Come and sit thee next to us,185And as we may want a lightSee that thou be dexterous.

Now bring forth your tractates musty,Dry, cadaverous, and dusty,One, on the sound of mammoths' bonesIn motion; one, on Druid-stones:Show designs for pipes most ghastly,And devils and ogres grinning nastily!Show, show the limnings ye brought back,Since round and round the zodiacYe galloped goblin horses whichWere light as smoke and black as pitch;And those ye made in the mouldy moon,And Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune,And in the planet Mercury,Where all things living and dead have an eyeWhich sometimes opening suddenlyStareth and startleth strangëly

But now the night is growing better,And every jet of smoke grows jetter,While yet there blinks sufficient light,Bring in those skeletons that frightMost men into fits, but thatWe relish for their want of fat.Bring them in, the CimabuesWith all or each that horribly true is,Francias, Giottos, Masaccios,That tread on the tops of their bony toes,And every one with a long sharp arrowCleverly shot through his spinal marrow,With plenty of gridirons, spikes, and firesAnd fiddling angels in sheets and quires.

Hold! 'tis dark! 'tis lack of light,Or something wrong in this royal sight,Or else our musty, dusty, and rightWell-beloved lieges allAre standing in rank against the wall,And ever thin and thinner, and tallAnd taller grow and cadaveral!Subjects, ye are sharp and spare,Every nose is blue and frosty,And your back-bone's growing bare,186And your king can count your costæ,And your bones are clattering,And your teeth are chattering,And ye spit out bits of pipe,Which, shorter grown, ye faster gripeIn jaws; and weave a cloudy cloakThat wraps up all except your bonesWhose every joint is oozing smoke:And there's a creaky music dronesWhenas your lungs distend your ribs,A sound, that's like the grating nibsOf pens on paper late at night;Your shanks are yellow more than whiteAnd very like what Holbein drew!Avaunt! ye are a ghastly crewToo like the Campo Santo—down!We are your monarch, but we ownThat were we not, we very wellMight take ye to be imps of hell:But ye are glorious ghastly sprites,What ho! our page! Sir knave—lights, lights,The final pipes are to be lit:Sit, gentlemen, we charge ye sitUntil the cock affrays the nightAnd heralds in the limping morn,And makes the owl and raven flit;Until the jolly moon is white,And till the stars and moon are gone.

No. V. Rain.

The chamber is lonely and light;Outside there is nothing but night—And wind and a creeping rain.And the rain clings to the pane:And heavy and drear'sThe night; and the tearsOf heaven are dropt in pain.

And the tears of heaven are dropt in pain;And man pains heaven and shuts the rainOutside, and sleeps: and winds are sighing;And turning worlds sing mass for the dying.

187

Reviews

Christmas Eve and Easter Day: by Robert
Browning.—Chapman and Hall. 1850.

There are occasions when the office of the critic becomes almost simply
that of an expositor; when his duty is not to assert, but to interpret. It
is his privilege to have been the first to study a subject, and become
familiar with it; what remains is to state facts, and to suggest
considerations; not to lay down dogmas. That which he speaks of is to him
itself a dogma; he starts from conviction: his it is to convince others,
and, as far as may be, by the same means as satisfied himself; to incite to
the same study, doing his poor best, meanwhile, to supply the present want
of it.

Thus much, indeed, is the critic's duty always; but he generally feels
the right, and has it, of speaking with authority. He condemns, or gives
praise; and his judgment, though merely individual and subject to revision,
is judgment. Before the certainty of genius and deathless power, in the
contemplation of consummate art, his position changes: and well for him if
he knows, and is contented it should be so. Here he must follow, happy if he
only follows and serves; and while even here he will not shelve his doubts,
or blindly refuse to exercise a candid discrimination, his demur at
unquestioning assent, far from betraying any arrogance, will be discreetly
advanced, and on clearly stated grounds.

Of all poets, there is none more than Robert Browning, in approaching
whom diffidence is necessary. The mere extent of his information cannot pass
unobserved, either as a fact, or as a title to respect. No one who has read
the body of his works will deny that they are replete with mental and
speculative subtlety, with vivid and most diversified conception of
character, with dramatic incident and feeling; with that intimate knowledge
of outward nature which makes every sentence of description a living truth;
replete with a most human tenderness and pathos. Common as is the accusation
of “extravagance,” and unhesitatingly as it is applied, in a
general off-hand style, to the entire character of Browning's poems, it
would require some jesuitism of self-persuasion to induce any one to affirm
his belief in the existence of such extravagance in the conception of the
poems, or in the sentiments expressed; of any want of concentration in
thought, of national or historical keeping. Far from this, indeed, a
deliberate unity of purpose is strikingly apparent. Without referring for
the present 188 to what are assumed to be
perverse faults of execution—a question the principles and bearing of
which will shortly be considered—assuredly the mention of the names
of a few among Browning's poems—of “Paracelsus,”
“Pippa Passes,” “Luria,” the “Souls's
Tragedy,” “King Victor and King Charles,” even of the less
perfect achievement, “Strafford”; or, passing to the smaller
poems, of “The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,” “The
Laboratory,” and “The Bishop orders his Tomb at St.
Praxed's”;—will at once realize to the memory of all readers an
abstruse ideal never lost sight of, and treated to the extreme of
elaboration. As regards this point, we address all in any manner acquainted
with the poet's works, certain of receiving an affirmative answer even from
those who “can't read Sordello, or understand the object of
writing in that style.”

If so many exceptions to Browning's “system of extravagance”
be admitted,—and we again refer for confirmation or refutation to all
who have sincerely read him, and who, valuing written criticism at its
worth, value also at its worth the criticism of individual
conviction,—wherein are we to seek this extravagance? The groundwork
exempted, the imputation attaches, if anywhere, to the framework; to the
body, if not to the soul. And we are thus left to consider the style, or
mode of expression.

Style is not stationary, or, in the concrete, matter of principle:
style is, firstly, national; next, chronological; and lastly, individual. To
try the oriental system by the European, and pronounce either wrong by so
much as it exceeds or falls short, would imply so entire a want of
comprehensive appreciation as can scarcely fail to induce the conviction,
that the two are distinct and independent, each to be tested on its own
merits. Again, were the Elizabethan dramatists right, or are those of our
own day? Neither absolutely, as by comparison alone; his period speaks in
each; and each must be judged by this: not whether he is true to any given
type, but whether his own type be a true one for himself. And this, which
holds good between nations and ages, holds good also between individuals.
Very different from Shelley's are Wordsworth's nature in description, his
sentiment, his love; Burn's and Keats's different from these and from each
other: yet are all these, nature, and sentiment, and love.

But here it will be urged: by this process any and every style is
pronounced good, so that it but find a measure of recognition in its own age
and country; nay, even the author's self-approval will be sufficient. And,
as a corollary, each age must and ought to reject its predecessor; and
Voltaire was no less than right in dubbing 189
Shakspere barbarian. That it is not so, however, will appear when the last
element of truth in style, that with which all others combine, which
includes and implies consistency with the author's self, with his age and
his country, is taken into account. Appropriateness of treatment to subject
it is which lies at the root of all controversy on style: this is the last
and the whole test. And the fact that none other is requisite, or, more
strictly, that all others are but aspects of this one, will very easily be
allowed when it is reflected that the subject, to be of an earnest and
sincere ideal, must be an emanation of the poet's most secret soul; and that
the soul receives teaching from circumstance, which is the time when and
place where.

This premised, it must next be borne in mind that the poet's conception
of his subject is not identical with, and, in the majority of cases, will be
unlike, his reader's. And, the question of style (manner) being necessarily
subordinate to that of subject (matter), it is not for the reader to dispute
with the author on his mode of rendering, provided that should be accepted
as embodying (within the bounds of grammatical logic) the intention
preconceived. The object of the poet in writing, why he attempts to describe
an event as resulting from this cause or this, or why he assumes such as the
effect; all these considerations the reader is competent to entertain: any
two men may deduce from the same premises, and may probably arrive at
different conclusions: but, these conclusions reached, what remains is a
question of resemblance, which each must determine for himself, as best
conscious of his own intention. To take an instance. Shakspere's conception
of Macbeth as a man capable of uttering a pompous conceit—

(“Here lay Duncan,His silver skin laced with his golden
blood—”)

in a moment, to him, and to all present, of startling
purport, may be a correct or an impressive conception, or it may be the
reverse. That the rendering of the momentary intention is adequate here
there is no reason to doubt. If so, in what respect is the reader called
upon to investigate a matter of style? He must simply return to the question
of whether this point of character be consistent with others imagined of the
same person; this, answered affirmatively, is an approval,—negatively,
a condemnation, of intention; the merit of style, in either
case, being mere competence, and that admitted irrespectively of the
reader's liking or disliking of the passage per se, or as part of a
context. Why, in this same tragedy of Macbeth, is a drunken porter
introduced between a murder and its discovery? Did Shakspere really intend
him to be a sharp-witted 190 man? These
questions are pertinent and necessary. There is no room for disputing that
this scene is purposely a comic scene: and, if this is certain, the style of
the speech is appropriate to the scene, and of the scene, to the conception
of the drama? Is that conception admirable?

We have entered thus at length on the investigation of adequacy and
appropriateness of style, and of the mode by which entire classes of
disputable points, usually judged under that name, may be reduced to the
more essential element of conception; because it will be almost invariably
found, that a mere arbitrary standard of irresponsible private predilection
is then resorted to. Nor can this be well guarded against. The concrete,
style, being assumed as always constituting an entity auxiliary to,
but not of necessity modified by, and representing subject,—as
something substantially pre-existing in the author's mind or practice, and
belonging to him individually; the reader will, not without show of reason,
betake himself to the trial of personality by personality, another's by his
own; and will thus pronounce on poems or passages of poems not as elevated,
or vigorous, or well-sustained, or the opposite, in idea, but, according to
certain notions of his own, as attractive, original, or conventional
writing.

Thus far as regards those parts of execution which concern human{13}
embodiment—the metaphysical and dramatic or epic faculties. Of style
in description the reader is more nearly as competent a judge as the writer.
In the one case, the poet is bound to realize an idea, which is his own, and
the justness of which, and therefore of the form of its expression, can be
decided only by reasoning and analogy; in the other, having for his type
material phænomena, he must reproduce the things as cognizable by all,
though not hereby in any way exempt from adhering absolutely to his proper
perception of them. Here, even as to ideal description or simile, the reader
can assert its truth or falsehood of purpose, its sufficiency or
insufficiency of means: but here again he must beware of exceeding his
rights, and of substituting himself to his author. He must not dictate under
what aspect nature is to be considered, stigmatizing the one chosen, because
his own bent is rather towards some other. In the exercise of censure, he
cannot fairly allow any personal peculiarities of view to influence
him; but will have to decide from common grounds of perception, unless
clearly conscious of 191 short-coming, or of
the extreme of any corresponding peculiarity on the author's part.

{13} In employing the word “human,” we would have our
intention understood to include organic spiritualism—the superhuman
treated, from a human pou sto, as ideal mind, form, power, action,
&c.

In speaking of the adaptation of style to conception, we advanced that,
details of character and of action being a portion of the latter, the real
point to determine in reference to the former is, whether such details are
completely rendered in relation to the general purpose. And here, to return
to Robert Browning, we would enforce on the attention of those among his
readers who assume that he spoils fine thoughts by a vicious, extravagant,
and involved style, a few analytical questions, to be answered unbiassed by
hearsay evidence. Concerning the dramatic works: Is the leading idea
conspicuously brought forward throughout each work? Is the language of the
several speakers such as does not create any impression other than that
warranted by the subject matter of each? If so, does it create the
impression apparently intended? Is the character of speech varied according
to that of the speaker? Are the passages of description and abstract
reflection so introduced as to add to poetic, without detracting from
dramatic, excellence? About the narrative poems, and those of a more
occasional and personal quality the same questions may be asked with some
obvious adaptation; and this about all:—Are the versification strong,
the sound sharp or soft, monotonous, hurried, in proportion to the
requirement of sense; the illustrative thoughts apt and new; the humour
quaint and relishing? Finally, is not in many cases that which is spoken of
as something extraneous, dragged in aforethought, for the purpose of
singularity, the result more truly of a most earnest and single-minded labor
after the utmost rendering of idiomatic conversational truth; the rejection
of all stop-gap words; about the most literal transcript of fact compatible
with the ends of poetry and true feeling for Art? This a point worthy note,
and not capable of contradiction.{14}

{14} We may instance several scenes of “Pippa
Passes,”—the concluding one especially, where Pippa reviews her
day; the whole of the “Soul's Tragedy,”—the poetic as
well as the prose portion; “The Flight of the Duchess;”
“Waring,” &c.; and passages continually recurring in
“Sordello,” and in “Colombe's Birthday.”

These questions answered categorically will, we believe, be found to
establish the assurance that Browning's style is copious, and certainly not
other than appropriate,—instance contrasted with instance—as the
form of expression bestowed on the several phases of a certain ever-present
form of thought. We have already endeavored to show that, where style is not
inadequate, its object as a means being attained, the mind must revert to
its decision as to relative and collective value of intention: and we will
again leave 192 Browning's manifestations of
intellectual purpose, as such, for the verdict of his readers.

To those who yet insist: “Why cannot I read Sordello?” we can
only answer:—Admitted a leading idea, not only metaphysical but subtle
and complicated to the highest degree; how work out this idea, unless
through the finest intricacy of shades of mental development? Admitted a
philosophic comprehensiveness of historical estimate and a minuteness of
familiarity with details, with the added assumption, besides, of speaking
with the very voice of the times; how present this position, unless by
standing at an eminent point, and addressing thence a not unprepared
audience? Admitted an intense aching concentration of thought; how be
self-consistent, unless uttering words condensed to the limits of
language?—And let us at last say: Read Sordello again. Why hold firm
that you ought to be able at once to know Browning's stops, and to pluck out
the heart of his mystery? Surely, if you do not understand him, the fact
tells two ways. But, if you will understand him, you shall.

We have been desirous to explain and justify the state of feeling in
which we enter on the consideration of a new poem by Robert Browning. Those
who already feel with us will scarcely be disposed to forgive the prolixity
which, for the present, has put it out of our power to come at the work
itself: but, if earnestness of intention will plead our excuse, we need seek
for no other.

The Evil under the Sun

How long, oh Lord?—The voice is sounding still,Not only heard beneath the altar stone,Not heard of John Evangelist aloneIn Patmos. It doth cry aloud and willBetween the earth's end and earth's end, untilThe day of the great reckoning, bone for bone,And blood for righteous blood, and groan for groan:Then shall it cease on the air with a sudden thrill;Not slowly growing fainter if the rodStrikes one or two amid the evil throng,Or one oppressor's hand is stayed and numbs,—Not till the vengeance that is coming comes:For shall all hear the voice excepting God?Or God not listen, hearing?—Lord, how long?

Published Monthly.—Price One Shilling.

Art and Poetry,
Being Thoughts towards Nature.

Conducted principally by Artists.

Of the little worthy the name of writing that has ever been written upon
the principles of Art, (of course excepting that on the mere mechanism), a
very small portion is by Artists themselves; and that is so scattered, that
one scarcely knows where to find the ideas of an Artist except in his
pictures.

With a view to obtain the thoughts of Artists, upon Nature as evolved in
Art, in another language besides their own proper one, this
Periodical has been established. Thus, then, it is not open to the
conflicting opinions of all who handle the brush and palette, nor is it
restricted to actual practitioners; but is intended to enunciate the
principles of those who, in the true spirit of Art, enforce a rigid
adherence to the simplicity of Nature either in Art or Poetry, and
consequently regardless whether emanating from practical Artists, or from
those who have studied nature in the Artist's School.

Hence this work will contain such original Tales (in prose or verse),
Poems, Essays, and the like, as may seem conceived in the spirit, or with
the intent, of exhibiting a pure and unaffected style, to which purpose
analytical Reviews of current Literature—especially Poetry—will
be introduced; as also illustrative Etchings, one of which latter, executed
with the utmost care and completeness, will appear in each number.

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